May 27, day 59, km 884
Distance to Kennedy Meadows, gateway to the Sierras: 231 km
Had a quiet morning. While folding laundry, Olli discovered he was missing a glove. (Oh boy, SP had transferred the laundry into the dryer the evening before, handing us the lot in a bag). During a breakfast of Corn Pops, delicious milk, plenty of good coffee, and the Greek Colbani yogurts we'd brought along, SP promised to search for the missing glove. We spent the rest of the morning writing our blog and taking care of communications, little inclined to go out, despite sunny weather, because a fierce wind blew. Just as we returned to our room, SP popped in with the missing glove, hurray! He recommended we visit the small airport nearby, which features an exhibition of scrapped planes. Just before heading off to lunch – it was now early afternoon – we had a surprise: Felix, a Dutch hiker whom we'd met in Hikertown, called to say he'd read in the PCT Facebook group (yes, it really exists) that Sabine's trekking poles had been delivered to the German bakery. Owner Coleen posted that the poles had been returned. Apparently, a woman had mistakenly assumed the trekking poles were left there for anyone who wanted them, since there had been a hiker box sitting in the same place earlier. The woman's daughter happened to read the Facebook post. Great! Now the question was: how to get back to Tehachapi? We were scheduled to go to the Mojave PO next morning (as it was currently closed for Memorial Day) to pick up the spare parts for Olli's trekking poles and the replacement camera. The plan was to take the bus to Tehachapi afterward.
Just before we headed out, SP and Bouna brought us some Indian delicacies. After that "coffee break," we finally went on a long walk around Mojave. The town's airport, the Mojave Air and Space
Port, features an exhibition of three scrapped and refurbished airplanes: the Convair jet was used to flight-test space shuttle landing gear and braking systems; the F-4 Phantom II was flown in
the Vietnam war; and the Super Sonic Jet was used to train pilots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_Air_and_Space_Port
In the evening, we braved heavy winds to walk to Primo Burgers (30 minutes). Next door, we followed up burgers with a second dinner at a Thai restaurant recommended to us in the family dollar
store. The food was really terrific – and cheap. After that, neither of us felt like walking back in a storm, so we ordered an Uber car. The driver, Viktor, comes from Russia and has been living
in the US for two years. He and his wife got Green Cards. His English was barely understandable.
Around 11 pm, we were in bed. Suddenly someone banged on the door. “Yes?” No answer. About an hour later, the same thing happened. Strange! Poltergeist says hello.
Pictures