Camping for PCT at Campo
I was returning to the lake for the third time. Less than two weeks ago I was at the trail marker for Lake Morena, about 10 minute drive south of the lake with RN, my husband and the former precious little Karlee, now 14. I have been doing google search on the PCT Southern Terminus and I wanted to see it so badly. It was Karlee's spring break week and I made RN drive to El Cajon then to highway 94 to Campo, stopping by highway 188 along the way to show him the way to Tecate Peak.
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It was at Lake Morena that I encountered my first PCT marker more than six months ago. It was at Morena Butte, long before I learned to never mispronounced the word butte for butt. Malou was visiting from Oregon and we were hiking at the Torrey Pines Reserve to the Red Butte. Malou's LOL would always remind me to say butte as if I was to say beautiful but I changed my mind. Beaut....crap!
A pleasant group as usual. Any group that would lead the way is always a pleasant group for me. It was just Ed I have hiked with before. I marveled at a rusty PCT trail marker. The marker must have stood where it has always been since.1968, when PCT was established as a national scenic trail by a congressional act. I marveled at the pleasant opportunity of meeting fellow hikers. The common bond is the PCT.
" We all are PCT crazy!" Tina said. Tina, I learned later, is a blogger. Wow! And our common bond is the PCT!
We walked northward from Lake Morena to the Boulder Oaks. I took note of what was growing or moving on the ground I was walking on. I listened to Caleb's chatter. He was more wholesome and entertaining than Howard Stern on Sirius satellite radio. Of course, he is only ten years old.
Jasper stepped right off the trail to let me pass. He impressed me as a seasoned hiker but he was too modest to admit anything. I examined a faded PCT patch on his backpack earlier. His vintage backpack with metal support cures his back aches like a back brace. Amazing brace. He talked about hiking in Northern California and mentioned about John Muir.
"Wow! Did you actually meet John Muir in person?" Jasper looked at me and asked what my original language is.
"Oh, I meant Jerry Schad, the late hiking guru. You seem to be a life-long hiker yourself." It's probably too late to redeem myself from foot-in-mouth disease. John Muir, the naturalist, died in 1914, about four decades before Jasper was born.
I caught up with Caleb and couldn't help hearing the banters with his granpa. The talk was animated. I examined a flowering plant that I have never seen before and took a picture.
About a mile later, I got into a reading distance to read what's written on a concrete wall under a bridge and get interested. Every time I see a graffiti, I think of bloggers and Contagion, the movie. "Blogging is not writing. It is graffiti with punctuation!"
Not that I care, I still blog. See?
I crossed the creek without wading into the mud. Actual stepping stones are really helpful. Then Thumper saw ducks. I did not know whether to look for rocks piled together as trail markers or the real ones: feathers, quacks and all. Finally I saw them, real ones: feathers, quacks and all!
I took more photos of wooden trail markers. I may never pass the same way again. I get mawkishly sentimental and remember that Catholic communion song only to wake up from my trance. Crap.... I almost stepped on one!
I am still on the PCT trail. I don't say much to anyone. Some times I caught up with Lisa and Steve. I gave up butting into their conversation three miles ago. It was just me hearing what I was saying. The meadows by the boulder oaks are yellow.
There was one last creek to cross before the we reached the campground. I call the creek crossing "Stumble Foot Bridge".
"Are you okay, granpa?" Caleb seemed pretty concerned.
"I am okay but not for you!"
And Jill came tumbling after.
I intended to car camp initially but I still brought the pop-up tent I bought online. Thumper invited everyone within hearing distance to feel free to join him in the campground he had rented for his family. Patricia drove into Thumper's campground followed by Steve. I really did not want to camp out and sleep in the pop-up tent I bought online. The thought of doing what Karlee and her friend Gianna did several years ago in our back yard was not very helpful. Karlee and Gianna set up camp one summer night in our back yard and they only stayed in the tent to play house for one hour. They were back inside the house before we knew it and camped in the family room with the TV on till morning.
"Does it look like I am regressing?" I asked my husband.
"No, it just looks like you are regaining your lost youth!"
It was my husband who said he is too old for camping in the first place.
I could not help going back to my iPhone. I text my husband: camping out after all! Nice, RN texted back! It was not even 8 PM and I had nothing better to do. I set my iPhone to cellular data and check-in at Facebook: PCT camping at Boulder Oaks Campground.
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I looked for the dipper that Patricia was interested about earlier. I have never been much of a stargazer. I hummed for Van Gogh. I did not know what's triggering this mawkish sentimentality. I thank the stars for having a comfortable home, for having the most loving husband any foreign bride could ask for. I ignored a shooting star and did not bother to make a wish. I am in America, what more could I ask? Ayyedmah Vahkkendjaab, else I would not be here.
I tried to zip myself up in Karlee's mummy bag. It was warm. The noise made by passing vehicles at the Old Highway 80 keeps me awake all night. I wonder if I'd get Lyme Disease from camping out. I worry about being bitten by ticks. What if a snake is crawling on me right now? I check my iPhone. It was 2 in the morning. I resolved to hike from Boulder Oaks to Cibbets Flat even if I was not sleeping at all till sunrise. Nothing can stop me from hiking more of PCT.
I have always wondered how or where PCT crosses Kumeyaay Highway, another name for Interstate 8 in the area. Hiking from Boulder Oaks to Cibbets Flat satisfied my curiosity. Of all the highways I have crossed while hiking the PCT, I-8 is still the most memorable for me. I cruised I-8 alone to meet with Priscilla in Arizona in 2010. It was almost a thru cruise for the whole of I-8 from San Diego to Tucson, Arizona when I missed the Guila Bend junction for Phoenix. I called Priscilla from the shoulder of I-8 somewhere in Arizona and finally found my way to highway 85, the connector of I-8 and I-10. I hummed for Priscilla a Norah Jones song.
"My heart is drenched in wine
But you'll be on my mind. Forever."
I asked Patricia to take my picture by a PCT marker overlooking I-8. Way too cool, I was in ecstasy without the help of hallucinogens! I take more pictures: PCT markers, yuccas, monkey flowers and blue dicks. I step right to let a lone hiker pass. He could be a thru hiker doing the 2,600 plus miles from Mexico to Canada. Wow! I step aside in another half a mile to let a group of southbound Boys Scouts through. I took more pictures including the Boy Scouts.
Now I know I have no problem with heights. The trail becomes part of a ravine. I took my time looking at valley below. I took more pictures and the communion song comes back.
"I'll give my heart to those who cannot see, the sunrise or the falling rain. I'll sing my song to cheer the weary along, for I may never pass this way again."
Crap! I take a picture of it. I also take another snap shot of the flowering plant that had been intriguing me since yesterday. The flower resembled the poppy where opium comes from, not that I have seen an actual one.
It turns out the flower is called California peony. Google says so.
"Isn't that a petrified wood?" I asked Patricia who just took a picture of the rocks I was interested with. Patricia thought it might be.
"First I was afraid, I was petrified!" I have seen a petrified wood before. But I could not connect how a fossilized wood would be petrified like Gloria Gaynor when she got dumped. I wonder what kind of animal would dump Gloria Gaynor.
I wonder what kind of animals dump on the PCT trail. I am not sure if dogs are allowed on the PCT trail. I do remember one time I joined an interpretative hike at the Kumeyaay Center in Poway looking at cases of scat to identify the animals who left them behind. I am not a shithead so I have no idea what kinds of animals dump at the PCT trail.
.jpg)
It was at Lake Morena that I encountered my first PCT marker more than six months ago. It was at Morena Butte, long before I learned to never mispronounced the word butte for butt. Malou was visiting from Oregon and we were hiking at the Torrey Pines Reserve to the Red Butte. Malou's LOL would always remind me to say butte as if I was to say beautiful but I changed my mind. Beaut....crap!
A pleasant group as usual. Any group that would lead the way is always a pleasant group for me. It was just Ed I have hiked with before. I marveled at a rusty PCT trail marker. The marker must have stood where it has always been since.1968, when PCT was established as a national scenic trail by a congressional act. I marveled at the pleasant opportunity of meeting fellow hikers. The common bond is the PCT.
" We all are PCT crazy!" Tina said. Tina, I learned later, is a blogger. Wow! And our common bond is the PCT!
We walked northward from Lake Morena to the Boulder Oaks. I took note of what was growing or moving on the ground I was walking on. I listened to Caleb's chatter. He was more wholesome and entertaining than Howard Stern on Sirius satellite radio. Of course, he is only ten years old.
Jasper stepped right off the trail to let me pass. He impressed me as a seasoned hiker but he was too modest to admit anything. I examined a faded PCT patch on his backpack earlier. His vintage backpack with metal support cures his back aches like a back brace. Amazing brace. He talked about hiking in Northern California and mentioned about John Muir.
"Wow! Did you actually meet John Muir in person?" Jasper looked at me and asked what my original language is.
"Oh, I meant Jerry Schad, the late hiking guru. You seem to be a life-long hiker yourself." It's probably too late to redeem myself from foot-in-mouth disease. John Muir, the naturalist, died in 1914, about four decades before Jasper was born.
I caught up with Caleb and couldn't help hearing the banters with his granpa. The talk was animated. I examined a flowering plant that I have never seen before and took a picture.
About a mile later, I got into a reading distance to read what's written on a concrete wall under a bridge and get interested. Every time I see a graffiti, I think of bloggers and Contagion, the movie. "Blogging is not writing. It is graffiti with punctuation!"
Not that I care, I still blog. See?
I crossed the creek without wading into the mud. Actual stepping stones are really helpful. Then Thumper saw ducks. I did not know whether to look for rocks piled together as trail markers or the real ones: feathers, quacks and all. Finally I saw them, real ones: feathers, quacks and all!
I took more photos of wooden trail markers. I may never pass the same way again. I get mawkishly sentimental and remember that Catholic communion song only to wake up from my trance. Crap.... I almost stepped on one!
I am still on the PCT trail. I don't say much to anyone. Some times I caught up with Lisa and Steve. I gave up butting into their conversation three miles ago. It was just me hearing what I was saying. The meadows by the boulder oaks are yellow.
There was one last creek to cross before the we reached the campground. I call the creek crossing "Stumble Foot Bridge".
"Are you okay, granpa?" Caleb seemed pretty concerned.
"I am okay but not for you!"
And Jill came tumbling after.
I intended to car camp initially but I still brought the pop-up tent I bought online. Thumper invited everyone within hearing distance to feel free to join him in the campground he had rented for his family. Patricia drove into Thumper's campground followed by Steve. I really did not want to camp out and sleep in the pop-up tent I bought online. The thought of doing what Karlee and her friend Gianna did several years ago in our back yard was not very helpful. Karlee and Gianna set up camp one summer night in our back yard and they only stayed in the tent to play house for one hour. They were back inside the house before we knew it and camped in the family room with the TV on till morning.
"Does it look like I am regressing?" I asked my husband.
"No, it just looks like you are regaining your lost youth!"
It was my husband who said he is too old for camping in the first place.
I could not help going back to my iPhone. I text my husband: camping out after all! Nice, RN texted back! It was not even 8 PM and I had nothing better to do. I set my iPhone to cellular data and check-in at Facebook: PCT camping at Boulder Oaks Campground.
.JPG)
I looked for the dipper that Patricia was interested about earlier. I have never been much of a stargazer. I hummed for Van Gogh. I did not know what's triggering this mawkish sentimentality. I thank the stars for having a comfortable home, for having the most loving husband any foreign bride could ask for. I ignored a shooting star and did not bother to make a wish. I am in America, what more could I ask? Ayyedmah Vahkkendjaab, else I would not be here.
I tried to zip myself up in Karlee's mummy bag. It was warm. The noise made by passing vehicles at the Old Highway 80 keeps me awake all night. I wonder if I'd get Lyme Disease from camping out. I worry about being bitten by ticks. What if a snake is crawling on me right now? I check my iPhone. It was 2 in the morning. I resolved to hike from Boulder Oaks to Cibbets Flat even if I was not sleeping at all till sunrise. Nothing can stop me from hiking more of PCT.
I have always wondered how or where PCT crosses Kumeyaay Highway, another name for Interstate 8 in the area. Hiking from Boulder Oaks to Cibbets Flat satisfied my curiosity. Of all the highways I have crossed while hiking the PCT, I-8 is still the most memorable for me. I cruised I-8 alone to meet with Priscilla in Arizona in 2010. It was almost a thru cruise for the whole of I-8 from San Diego to Tucson, Arizona when I missed the Guila Bend junction for Phoenix. I called Priscilla from the shoulder of I-8 somewhere in Arizona and finally found my way to highway 85, the connector of I-8 and I-10. I hummed for Priscilla a Norah Jones song.
"My heart is drenched in wine
But you'll be on my mind. Forever."
I asked Patricia to take my picture by a PCT marker overlooking I-8. Way too cool, I was in ecstasy without the help of hallucinogens! I take more pictures: PCT markers, yuccas, monkey flowers and blue dicks. I step right to let a lone hiker pass. He could be a thru hiker doing the 2,600 plus miles from Mexico to Canada. Wow! I step aside in another half a mile to let a group of southbound Boys Scouts through. I took more pictures including the Boy Scouts.
Now I know I have no problem with heights. The trail becomes part of a ravine. I took my time looking at valley below. I took more pictures and the communion song comes back.
"I'll give my heart to those who cannot see, the sunrise or the falling rain. I'll sing my song to cheer the weary along, for I may never pass this way again."
Crap! I take a picture of it. I also take another snap shot of the flowering plant that had been intriguing me since yesterday. The flower resembled the poppy where opium comes from, not that I have seen an actual one.
"Isn't that a petrified wood?" I asked Patricia who just took a picture of the rocks I was interested with. Patricia thought it might be.
I wonder what kind of animals dump on the PCT trail. I am not sure if dogs are allowed on the PCT trail. I do remember one time I joined an interpretative hike at the Kumeyaay Center in Poway looking at cases of scat to identify the animals who left them behind. I am not a shithead so I have no idea what kinds of animals dump at the PCT trail.
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