Day 64: Meetup at Cottonwood Pass

June 23: I woke up early and hit the trail running at precisely 6:03am. The trail was basically dirt roads, so I could move fast and efficiently, knocking off 14.1 miles according to my GPS and reaching Highway 112 by 11:00am. That's gotta be a new record for me!

The morning started clear and bright but it didn't take long for gray clouds to drift in. It never rained--rain wasn't even in the forecast--but it was definitely more dreary with overcast skies.

And I found Amanda waiting for me at the trailhead by the highway. She had been there since 8:00am and reported only seeing one other hiker during the three hours she had been there. It was Reality Check, but I didn't know her. I was a little surprised that Amanda hadn't seen Skunkbear or Savage who I still assumed was somewhere ahead of me--could they really be so far ahead of me? (No, as it turned out--they were behind me--but I hadn't figured this out yet. Actually, I'm not sure where Savage was. Skunkbear was behind me, but I don't think they kept hiking together out of Creede and I never saw Savage again so never figured out if she was ahead of me or behind me.)

Amanda had bought a whole bunch of snacks and drinks to hand out as trail magic and was a little disappointed that there weren't more hikers who had passed by. I told her that there wasn't going to be that many hikers on the trail. It was still a bit early for Colorado Trail thru-hikers, and CDT thru-hikers were pretty well spread out. The only two people I thought she might have seen would have been Skunkbear and Savage who I thought were a bit ahead of me, and there was a group of 4 thru-hikers somewhere behind me that I had passed the previous morning in camp, but outside of them, I didn't know of anyone else in my area. The trail just wasn't very crowded with hikers.

In any case, Amanda had already booked a motel room in the far off town of Saguache, so I piled into the vehicle and off we went!

Amanda was ready to hand out trail magic, but alas, only one hiker passed by while she was waiting for me.

I cleaned up with a shower and changed into clean clothes. The town was a bit small without much for services and Amanda wanted to drive into Salida, so we headed there for lunch and for me to do some resupplying.

We stopped at 50 Burgers for lunch, a restaurant I remembered enjoying when I was in town during my Colorado Trail thru-hike. The place was quite crowded, but still good. Then we went to Walmart where I bought a few goods to resupply before heading back to the hotel for the night.

50 Burgers was a nice place to stop for lunch in Salida. *nodding* But Amanda seems more interested in her phone than her food. ;o)

I didn't bother to pick up my laptop because it wasn't expected to have arrived yet and Amanda brought my bigger, nicer laptop from home so I didn't really need the smaller, less-powerful laptop that I mailed in my bounce box.

And the rest of the evening, I just spent catching up on email and messages that I hadn't been able to do while in Pagosa Springs or Creede. The last time I had been able to get online with a laptop was way back in Chama, and there I kept having to slink over to the visitor center to get online. It was nice to finally have my laptop and a good wi-fi connection at the same time. Seemed like the last time I had it was weeks earlier! (Because it was weeks earlier--way back in Cuba.)

Thus ended my 64th day on the trail....