Day 73 – Saturday, Aug. 5

Zero Day in Reno

David, friend of the blog, drove us to Truckee, Calif., this morning, where we ate a huge breakfast at the Squeeze In diner and then waited around for the post office to open so we could pick up packages.

Truckee is a cool town with a wide main street that makes it feel like the wild west. There are a lot of cool little stores and some very, very nice homes. David said a lot of rich people from the Bay Area have second homes there for Lake Tahoe getaways in the winter and the summer.

After that, David brought us back to his house where we did laundry and took much-needed showers. It was really nice to be in a home.

In the afternoon we went to REI where Stephen and I each bought a new water filter. Our pump stopped working two days ago and we had used the backup tablets I had to purify water. This was frustrating because the pump was already our backup to the gravity filter that we had started with.

Calling all engineers: Please create a water filter that is built to last, but isn't too heavy!

Stephen bought a Katadyn Be Free and I bought the Sawyer Squeeze. The Sawyer is by far the most common filter we see used by pct hikers. Fingers crossed this is the last time we have to buy new filters.

The best part of being in Reno was eating lots of good food! We ate pizza and a creation called Frachos (nachos on top of French fries rather than chips). We drank good beer and ate more food.

All good things.