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Ok gang, I'm still at Warner Springs in SoCal, soaking up the sulfur stench of the soothing hot waters in the desert.  We got offered a free night here by another hiker friend and since there is an Achilles tendon injury to look at, we are being conservative for once.  Besides,the other hikers headed out this morning and left behind a ton of food in the "hiker box" so the Chuffmate and I have about a week's worth of free food to mail ahead of us.  Niiiice.

What can I say about the first 109 or so miles?  Hot.  DRY.  WIND.  VIIIIEEEEEEWWWWWWWS.  When the air doesn't hold much moisture, the vistas go forever.  Even fifty miles north we could still easily see some of Mexico, or so we imagined.  We've hit dozens of miles of sand and rock, tens of thousands of cacti trying to shred our skin and equipment, Jeffery pinecones bigger than our heads, and sun so hot that my watch read 160 degrees near the surface. When it's like that, we have to get under the umbrellas and wait it out.  Nights bring a billion stars and a bright moon smiling down at us.  Strangely enough, we haven't seen much of the Milky Way.  Two of the trail nights we spent out in the open cowboy camping.  The first night was our very first on the trail, and it brought 30 or so illegal immigrants silently slipping by in the night.  They carry pretty much nothing but a little bottle of water and their aim is to walk north as FAST as they can.  Border patrol is all over the place and they have choppers, as do the armed forces bases around here.  Camping the other night two military Comanche attack helicopters buzzed the mountain.  Whoah.  America.  We awoke that first night with ice on our sleeping bags.  So it goes.  The second night we camped out we slept on the (blessedly flat) top of a concrete water tank used to fight fires.  Before drifting off to sleep in the whipping wind (glad my bag has a windstopper shell) we counter satellites floating through the black sky.  We woke up the next day and did 22 miles.  So it goes!  A tad more than 60 miles in 3 days.  Blisters and sunburn and rattlesnakes, oh my!  And there are about 600 more miles of "desert" to go before we hit the beginning of the Sierra Nevada.  Looking forward to that, but not in a hurry to get up there, as the wildflowers down here have been completely amazing.

Thanks for your continued support, I'll check in again when I can, and maybe I can include photos and video. 
Ciao, BOBCAT (My trail name)