Day 41

Tonight I'm camped close enough to Highway 58 at Tehachapi Pass to hear the hum of the traffic go by as well as the occasional train. I never used to notice those sounds. I can also hear the additional hum of the wind turbines at work on the ridgetops above me. This area is incredibly windy! I'm camped with shrubs acting as quasi-windblocks on three of the four sides of my tent and it is still whipping pretty good! One thing that I really like about the wind is that it keeps the bugs away. Speaking of bugs, there have been more grasshoppers in the last two days than I've seen in the rest of my life! I'm not kidding...the ground looked like popcorn in some places. They jump out of my way and then the wind would catch them and they'd blow 6-12 feet. It was pretty funny and helped pass the time as I was focusing on not getting blown over.

If everything goes as it has been, I'll hit 600 miles on Tuesday morning. Hard to believe it! Next week at this time I should be in Kennedy Meadows revamping my gear for my 175-mile hike without resupply. It'll likely be my biggest such stretch. But, I'm really excited about it! This is what most people look forward to on the PCT and I'm no exception!

I expect cell coverage to be spotty over the next several days and possibly for weeks, but I'll be posting updates just as often as I can, so keep checking in!

One more thing...I'd REALLY like my fundraising total to be up over $7000 by the time I get to Kennedy Meadows. So if you can do anything to make that happen, I'd be most appreciative. :) Just go to www.hikeforhope2009.com and click on the fundraising link on the homepage and you'll be good to go!

Thanks for reading!