Day 6: Lordsburg, the first trail town

April 26: Evenstar was already leaving camp as I was just waking up a little before 6:00am. I don't know how or why she woke up so early--it was still quite dark out and the stars were out--but she was off and moving before the sun even rose. Probably trying to take advantage of the cooler temperatures of the morning.

I, however, didn't get moving until a little after sunrise at about 7:00am. My usual start time. But Evenstar was still limping along with her massive blisters and we both knew that there was a good chance that I could catch up with her at some point.

The day's hike was pretty uneventful and followed the pattern of previous days. I stopped briefly at the fifth and final water cache, but I didn't actually need any water since I had carried more than enough from the last water source in order to camp away from water and still had a liter available. The town of Lordsburg, was only about 6 miles away, and given the cool temperatures of the morning, I figured that was plenty.

I did catch up with Evenstar barely an hour into my walk which surprised me. I had expected it to take longer for me to catch up, but she explained that she had taken a wrong turn and walked a half hour in the wrong direction. Ouch. That had to suck.

She continued limping along, and I passed by eventually arriving in the small town of Lordsburg. I already knew my way around the town a bit since it was the same town where I stayed with my mom the night before I started the trail.

I checked into the Econolodge, the thru-hiker's favorite hangout, reserving the room for two nights and made myself comfortable. I took a shower, rinsing off all the dirt and grime from the past week, then walked across the street to Kranberry's for lunch where I ordered a burger with fries.

I checked into the Econolodge in town.

 

After lunch, I walked a few blocks further into town to the grocery store and picked up a few items to stock the mini-fridge of my room with.

Then I headed back to my room for the rest of the day. I had left my laptop at the hotel before leaving town for the border, so I had my laptop readily available to catch up with messages. (I also left some clean clothes so even though I hadn't done laundry yet, I still had some clean clothes to wear.)

All-in-all, a pretty dull day, but it sure felt great finally being clean again!

The fifth and final water cache before Lordsburg

I stopped at Kranberry's Restaurant for lunch.

Where I ordered the burger with fries. Delicious!

Then I passed under Interstate 10 to get to the grocery store.

I think calling this a "super" market is a little generous--seemed more like a large grocery store to me, but it served my purposes! =)

This is the hiker box in the lobby of the Econolodge where hikers can leave stuff they don't need or want anymore and other hikers can grab anything they might want or need.