Day 83 – Tuesday, Aug. 15

PCT Mile 1,328.8, Chester to PCT Mile 1,338.2
Day Total: 9.4 miles

I felt great after sleeping in late in a real bed.

Stephen got up early and went to the laundromat to wash all of our clothes for the first time since Reno. He also stopped by the post office to pick up two very important packages – our new shoes!

This is my fourth pair of trail runners on this hike. The most recent pair that I'm retiring today lasted nearly 600 miles and only started to look beat up in the last week. They felt great and hadn't given me any blisters or any problems at all, so I ordered the same model again.

Stephen, on the other hand, did not have a great relationship with his last pair of shoes. They were out to get him, he says. Fingers crossed that his new shoes will solve all the problems.

I took a warm bath, which felt luxurious and worked wonders for my aching legs. I sorted through some photos and got caught up on some blog entries.

We ate lunch with another hiker named 45 at the "all-you-can-eat" pizza buffet in town. We bought groceries for the next few days and some more that we sent ahead to Burney Falls State Park, where we'll be in a few days.

We made it back to the trail about 4 p.m. and hiked until dark, finding a campsite by the Feather River. There were a few other hikers camped out along the river and one of them was a hiker named Slash who we met a thousand miles ago. That's crazy to say!

We hadn't seen him since Bishop.

It was great to chat with him while we ate the loaf of bread and cream cheese we had packed out.