June 5, day 68-69, km 1,049
Checked out around 11:30 am and booked two tickets online for a Greyhound bus from Bakersfield to Ashland ($155 each). Coincidentally discovered that our alpine boots – we thought we'd posted them to the wrong Kennedy Meadows (there's a Kennedy Meadows South, gateway to the Sierra, and a Kennedy Meadows North, further north in the Sierra) – ended up in Inyokern, about 10 miles from Ridgecrest. We have no idea how that happened. Booked an Uber and were overjoyed to have Matthew as our driver once again. At the PO we were told the boots aren't in Inyokern, but in Kennedy Meadows South at Grumpy Bear’s, which is part of Inyokern. That was fine with us, since we only need them for the Sierra, which we plan to hike in the summer, so we’ll pass through Kennedy Meadows then anyway. The kind postal employee called up Grumpy Bear's – they would have posted the boots down to Inyokern, whose PO in turn would have shipped them on to Ashland. However, the boots wouldn't have arrived during our stay and the PO is closed on Saturdays in Ashland. We would therefore have had to wait till Monday or Tuesday. The reason for all these logistics? You'll recall the sole of Sabine's Lowa boot had cracked; with a bit of glue, the sole was good for another 250 km, after which Sabine replaced the Lowas with a pair of Altra Woman Foot Shape in Hikertown. The latter, however, gave her a pain in the heel after 10 km. No fun. She tried "recycling" the Lowa insoles in her Altras; but, ultimately, the insoles were too worn out. Olli’s problem was that the eyelet tabs on his Altra Men Foot Shape boots tore after only 4 days. We quickly decided we'd solve the boot problem in Ashland rather than hike the terrain ahead of us in too-heavy mountain boots. We asked the postal employee if she would call Grumpy Bear to ask if we might be able to store the packages with our boots until at most late August. Turned out to be no problem, so we were happy. Funny: the day before, while we were in Matthew's car, we'd passed our shoes without knowing it. Mistake – or not?
Matthew took us back to Ridgecrest, where we hung out at a gigantic Walmart until the bus got arrived. Olli bought a knife (the third), protein powder, and spring hooks. We also bought bananes and sweets and a sandwich at Subway. At 14:25 pm the bus left. We changed buses at Lake Isabella and Bakersfield, where we had a three-hour wait until the night bus arrived. Had a meal at Cafe Dagny's, where we met Franziska, a professional cyclist from Lübeck, who's been living in Bakersfield for the last 13 years. Made a nice interview. Franziska drove us to the Greyhound station, where we discovered there would be another hour and a half delay. So we were able to continue our conversation with Franziska, who told us many interesting things about Americans, Californians, and Germans. She even brought us some premium protein powder from her home when we told her we wanted to adjust our diet on the trail. Around 9:45 pm, the bus finally took off and we reached Ashland the next morning around 9 am.
It feels very weird to skip over so many kilometers of the trail (roughly 1000) and catch it again further north – with a completely different landscape and temperature.
June 6, day 69, km 1,049
Went directly to the PO, where all our packages were waiting: 10 high-speed SD cards, SD card duplicator, charger with 8 AA batteries. We stayed the night at the Relax Inn, about 4 miles from downtown. Now we just need to fine a computer to make one last backup. And decide whether we're heading south or north.
Pictures