After arriving at the airport of San Diego at 11pm I had to make the devision to take a taxi/uber to get to Scout&Frodo’s place or to sleep at the airport.

 

The arrival hall did not seemed to be very comfortable so I decided to just accept my fate of arriving late and investing money in a ride. After a few tries to contact a uber I gave up an got a taxi which took me to their place for 50$

 

The front door was not locked even though everyone was asleep in the house and I could enter quietly. I saw this letter they attached at the entry.

 

 

I wasn’t able to finish the page as a girl entered the house too, I did recognized here me from the airport. We could have shared the taxi if we would have known our same destination.

 

I offered her to sleep on the couch an set down to sleep on the floor in the living room. I did not slept very well and I woke up at 5am in the morning because the morning routine started.

 

After joining breakfast and seeing all the hikers getting ready to be drooped of at campo, the late arrivers (the was another guy on the couch too) got a tour around the house.

 

Scout & Frodo are trail angels, they have been hiking the PCT in 2007 and started a year earlier hosting the hikers before their start. The amazing thing about them is that they dont accept any kind of donation. They just want us to be relaxed before we start our journey.

 

In the morning I went to the local Vons store which is a 15 minut walk away from the house to get food for the first 5 days. It is so different to look at a fat reduced product and think “why would I want less calories then I could get”

 

 

This is what 37$ got me, only the tortillas are missing on the picture. 15’300 kcal for 5 days. That’s the amount I wanted to reach and I am just under 5kg, for me it’s the perfect resupply 🙂

 

 

Those are the mile 0 hiker boxes.

People leave stuff behind they realize they won’t need and other people can take things out there which they think the might need. I got myself about 750 gramm of M&Ms, peanuts and marshmallors 🙂

 

 

 

This is the cup-system, every hiker gets one, writes his name and date he leaves on it so the waste is reduced to a minium.

 

In the afternoon AT&T came to the house to sell us sim-cards and data plans for the trip. An amazing service they provide because the hikers make about half of their new contracts signed during hiker-season.

 

 

After dinner Scout (actually he’s not on this picture) packs out the guitar and starts playing and everyone who knows playing gets their chance to play as well.

 

The second day I stayed was about the same as the first day, going to the grocery store, packing the pack to see if everything fits unpack it again, trow out stuff and pack again. Same procedure as every day for the next six months 🙂

 

Right now we are sitting again on the couch, singing to Scout playing the guitare. I start to get more and more excited to start in a few hours.

 

 

Those are going to be my treats for tomorrow 🙂

 

 

Going to bed soon to be fit tomorrow to wake up at 5 am and start hike the PCT 😀