Day 33: Tylerhorse Canyon and a moment of freedom – Mile 550

Miles traveled: 21.6

Mile marker: 563.1

4:00 am came too quickly.

The good news: I woke up free of black ants.

The bad news: let’s say that from now on I will avoid sleeping on the slopes.

My first thought: I’m very tired.

I just feel defeated. I don’t know what it is. Maybe the heat, maybe the diet, maybe the accumulation of 24 mile days, but I’m exhausted!

The moon shines brightly between the stars. The sky last night was absolutely beautiful. It looked like Van Gough’s Starry Night and I saw two shooting stars! Oh, how I wish I could still stargaze, safe in my sleeping bag.

On flat ground.

I spent most of the night sliding onto my sleeping mat. Other than that, I slept pretty well.

There is a light breeze that makes anyone who has just come out from under the covers cold. The ants are sleeping too, so I don’t have to worry about getting them off my things.

To avoid slipping on my mat last night, I placed some of my clothes and things under the mat. In this way it contributed to leveling the slope.

I feel lost, once again, as I wonder where half of my belongings are.

A small sand-colored spider-like thing crawls on Rafiki’s hand. I’ve seen this once before.

At the beginning of the journey, this same type of error was creeping around. I turned it over with a stick.

“Be careful,” Dad said. «A lot of the animals here look intimidating, but they’re quite delicate.»

It reminds me of a nocturnal insect, or an animal that lives so deep in the ocean that it takes on a fleshy appearance.

It’s a few minutes after five when we start walking.

Yes. Not sorry.

It is dark, but there is a faint blue light at the top of the hills. I turn off my headlight. The ground is loose sand as we go around the hills. My foot keeps slipping on the eroded path. I sigh in irritation as my foot gives way once again, my trekking poles saving me.

Why am I so tired? I’m working on my breakfast drink: a breakfast essential of chocolate, instant coffee, and hot chocolate (which I picked up a couple of marshmallows from the sand to eat this morning after I spilled them in the dark).

I walk for a while and can finally get out the breakfast cookie to give me some energy. We’ve been walking uphill all day. As soon as I turned another corner, it was another uphill climb.

Does it ever end!?

We pause at the top of the hill and I sit with the others. We spend a few minutes trying to plan for tomorrow. Since I’m on the Tehachapi Trail Angle Facebook page, I’m trying to post a message requesting a ride. I tried twice yesterday but it didn’t publish for some reason. I have now posted it twice again and it is now backordered.

«There is an umbrella and chairs by the water tank. Let’s move there.»

We get up and move. I decide for the first time on the road to listen to music. I was going to wait until I was done with the desert, but I said that mainly because I wanted to hear rattlesnakes.

Music is magical. I’ll tell you more about this shortly.

We arrive at the cache, where an uncle and niece from the Netherlands are hiking. They don’t walk with trekking poles! I saw them around and tried to chat with them (they didn’t seem the most interested in chatting with strangers), but since I established a little rapport with them the other day, I picked up another conversation.

The guy, High Five, pulls out his chair for me so I can join him in the shade.

I talk to High Five and his niece, and they are very friendly and open! They say that Dutch culture is quite direct.

My kind of people!

Dad makes a ram pump, even though it’s only 9:00 in the morning. My group is spread out in the shade under the other umbrella while I chat with the Dutch duo.

The gallons of water are lined up on the shelf and Dad rearranged everything so that the empty liters are on top and the full gallons are on the bottom. A QR code is posted, so I grab a liter and Venmo a couple bucks for the cause.

Dad sits next to me as the uncle-niece duo leaves. «What’s your philosophy on skipping miles?»

«Don’t do it,» I say. «I mean, unless I’m injured or something, I wouldn’t do it. I came here to be challenged, and the miles are a challenge.»

«The suffering here is what makes the Sierras so beautiful. Then there’s the sadness of NorCal, because you just came out of something so awesome.»

The sun rises, it shines fully with clouds painted in the sky like watercolor.

We continue walking and I turn on my music. I’m listening from the top of my favorite playlist. With the hills, the winding road and the house in the distance, I remember something I might see in a movie filmed in England or Ireland. Dryer only. And dustier.

The music.

I haven’t listened to music in a month. Today has been hard, so I decided it was time. I rode 500 miles without it, so now is as good a time as ever, although I told myself I’d go through the desert without audio.

I start with the playlist I like on Spotify.

Wow. Everything is so vibrant! The hills I’ve been shuffling over these past few days are beautiful! The flowers are so purple! And yellow! The sky is so blue! The sweet aroma of pine fills my nostrils.

Empowerment runs through me. I feel like I can do anything, not just anything in the world, like climb a mountain or something that doesn’t interest me too much. I feel like I can do anything I want. I feel like I can go anywhere! Any country! Learn any language! I can succeed at the things I want to succeed at!

The path opens before me. I am flying over the hills; It helps that it’s mostly downhill. I walk uphill like a professional skier. I’m floating.

The hot sun doesn’t touch me. My shin pain from the 17-mile hike on a flat road doesn’t bother me. My burst blister that hurts from pressure is not in phase.

I am untouchable.

I am emotional and empowered simultaneously. For the first time on the road, I feel completely free and unburdened by physical pain, the discomfort of my new, temporary life, and the anxiety of worrying about what people think of me.

I’m having fun.

Real, real fun here on the trail for the first time. I feel like I’m flying.

I haven’t heard anything in a month. My dopamine runs through my veins.

We hit the windmills. The sun shines on a windmill like a bolt from the sky. There are two rainbows: one above and one at the bottom of the windmill. I stop and stare at it: I’ve never seen a rainbow like this before.

Rafiki stops on a log to shake the sand off his shoes. My left shoe is also full of sand.

“Is it time to shake the sand out of your shoe?” asked.

“There’s a big failure right there, so I’d wait,” Dad says. He points to a giant crack torn into the ground. The land is orange and rocky. “This is where I stopped to make a hammock the last time I was here!” Dad says. Continue along the winding path.

“You were flying around!” Rafiki says as I’m about to leave. «I thought you did drugs or something.»

«No!» say. “Just music!” Then I fly away.

We went down the hills. The windmills look like a town. We passed between small clusters of Joshua trees. The windmills now look like a big band practicing.

We reach a stream and stop right next to it. Dad and I sat on a log in the stream and rinsed our socks and shirts. Savannah joins us to clean up; We’re going into town tomorrow, so I’m not so inclined to do laundry and wait in wet clothes.

I wash the dirt off my calves. As I splash water on the rest of my legs, I’m confused why the water turns brown.

«It’s the desert!» Dad says. «Everything is so dirty!»

I chill my KitKat and Snickers bars in the creek, which is a challenge since it’s not that cold.

We lay down and tried to take naps. Ants are everywhere. Most of them are little black ants that just crawl on me. I can feel her tiny legs tickling me as I rest. Well, try to rest. I get rid of the ants.

The plan was to write a blog, but when a huge gust of wind blows sand into my eyes, I put my forehead on the mat and give up.

Savannah suggested we play cards! We sit at the table (a while ago he asked me to play but I was resting with the ants) and it is so windy that it is problematic to play cards. We don’t know of any good game that will suffice in this windy weather.

I got us a ride, but Bumper is going into town today. He has a very bad sunburn from yesterday. This is quite strange, since it wasn’t even in the sun. She has such light skin, naturally.

We have dinner and tour the wind farm. Windmills hum in the air and whistle and moan in a constant rhythm. The wind blows my hair into my eyes. There’s a lot of noise here.

The windmills now look like an army.

Finally we arrived at our ‘tent site’, something recommended on FarOut. It’s pretty steep, so Dad makes tents and Savannah, Rafiki and I cowboy camp.

Very good for not having earrings.

It gets really exciting when you hear the gunshots and the ricochet of bullets whizzing past us.

I was in the bathroom at the time, so when I come back, Dad tells me, “Stay down!”

We’re crouched down while Dad and Rafiki try to flash their headlights in the direction of the gunfire.

Finally, the gunshots stop and we are left staring at the stars, trying to identify what smells like baby spit-up.

«I’m sorry, Rafiki, but I put you at the end to block the wind,» I tell him.

«There are rocks under me! My pad is so thin! I haven’t slept in so long! I’m going crazy! Every night!» Rafiki says.

Savannah and I can’t stop laughing as he continues. Poor boy. Hopefully you’ll be able to get a new sleeping pad soon.

We look at the sky. The stars are placed in front of us and we ask Savannah about the constellations. It’s nice to have a scientist around!

It’s windy, but I hope we can get a good night’s sleep!