May 28, day 60, km 884
Distance to Kennedy Meadows, gateway to the Sierras: 231 km
Left the Desert Inn around 12:30 pm. Amid voluble adieus, the kind Indian couple took selfies of us all, then we hurried to get to the PO (which closed at 1 pm) – barely making it. Then we ran for the bus to Tehachapi, laden with full backpacks and the packages with the new camera and replacement parts for Olli's trekking poles. At the busstop, we struck up a conversation with Marie, a French biologist from the Ardèche region who's working on a research project in the US and currently taking a two-week camping vacation with her two children, Olivier and Ondine. Just before the bus arrived, a fellow named Blackfoot, originally from Nuremburg, spoke to us in German. This Christmas, he's scheduled to be Santa Claus in Tehachapi. We were then confronted with a rather unpleasant surprise: the bus wouldn't take credit cards. One fare costs 3 bucks. We only had 3 dollars left, because we'd given the nice Indian couple a gratuity. Without batting an eyelash, Marie paid for our second fare. On the bus we enjoyed a lovely conversation in English, French, and German about her research, food on camping trips etc.
At the bakery, Sabine picked up her lost trekking poles. This was followed by breakfast and a discussion about whether we should try once more to locate a Mac for transferring our data from the second hard drive. We'd been able to transfer Sabine’s data in Wrightwood, sending backups to New York and Stuttgart. To date, Olli's drive had not yet been recognized by any other computer. Two couples (Ron and Carol, Gary and Patricia) at the table next door addressed us just at that moment, asking if we were hikers. We immediately inquired whether they knew anyone locally who had a Macintosh. Ron said he had one at home. We knew the data transfer would take many hours, likely resulting in a night in Tehachapi. Ron came up with a few other alternatives in town. Ron’s brother-in-law, Gary, offered to drive Olli to the offices in question. Ultimately, though, no one could help.
The upshot was Ron and Carol invited us to their home (they live about a half hour from Tehachapi in a peaceful guarded community) to try our luck with Ron's MacBook. Accommodations included. Gary and Patricia were visiting from San Diego, so the four of them had driven to Tehachapi in one car. So all six of us piled into their car (not entirely kosher, of course), arriving shortly after in Bear Valley Springs. Along the way, we stopped at Big Five to return Sabine's new trekking poles, purchasing new Crocs for Olli with the refund. Thus, we were once more equipped to continue our hike. We're simply amazed at how open and helpful Americans are! Ron, a retired computer scientist, owns a fairly up-to-date MacBook. Which indeed worked! Hours later, the data on the hard drive had been securely transferred to two other drives. We had a terrific evening – which turned out to be a complete surprise – and in a very different place. The dinner (homemade vegetable soup, salad, Kölsch and Warsteiner beers (!!!), tortilla chips with guacamole dip, homemade peach pie with vanilla, chocolate, and mint ice cream) was followed by conversations about nature, politics, music, our films and projects. Olli gave a taste of his compositions from his website, with the help of a small loudspeaker box linked via Bluetooth. Olli's score for Sabine’s Film "Die Liebe, mein Schatz, ist bodenlos" ("Love, my Dear, is Fathomless"), about the Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon, impressed our listeners with its orchestral complexity (performed by the Babelsberg Film Orchestra). When it came to his composition "Changes in Motion," which Olli wrote on the occasion of our daughter Zarah's 20th birthday, our audience leaned back into the leather furniture, deeply moved. Over 14 years ago, Gary and Pat lost their then 26-year-old daughter under mysterious circumstances. It was an evening that warrants an extra blog entry.
When everybody was in bed, Sabine attended to a few "administrative tasks" on the Mac. She's a Speedy Gonzalez on the Mac ...
Tomorrow, finally, we'll take the hard drives to the post office!
Pictures