Day 31-living up to my name

Some people walk the pacific crest trail, I experience it. Ryan and I began about 7 miles away from the road that I was going to hitch to tehachapi from. The miles blew by. We walked through a pine forest, then into the windfarm. It was amazing how many wind turbines there were. Easily thousands. We saw the road after about 5 mikes, but in the typical pct way, we had to take many switchbacks twists and turns to actually make it. Here I parted ways with Ryan. He was going to walk 8 more miles to the highway where his friend would pick him up. I walked up to the road and used my growing skill of getting a hitch. It is always strange when someone pulls over for you, and the second before you open the door you are a little worried who it might be. This time it was a seventh day adventist on his way to church. He was a little strange but he took me all the way to kmart so I can't complain. I picked up a few things then walked to the post office where I got new shoes! I decided to keep the old ones and try to make some Sierra shoes. I bought some screws at home depot and will play around with creating some traction. After this I was all set. I just needed a small brick of cheese (a nice novelty food that is gone within a couple days). I walked down the street not even trying for a hitch but a lady picked me up and drive me to a store that had cheese. It was still early so from here I decided to try to get back to the trail and try to get some more miles in. I walked for maybe 5 minutes with my thumb up and a guy that works for the windfarm picked me up. I was pretty interested in why they had so many and where the money for the wind turbines came from. He said they were hoping to more than double the thousands they already have. He also said the biggest ones cost 4 million dollars. He dropped me off and I began to walk to the highway. I had a very heavy pack with eight days of food and two pairs of shoes. But I kept walking through the windy fields.

Then suddenly I heard a rattle. One I had heard before. It was loud and coming from about 15 feet away. When I looked there I saw the most poisonous rattlesnake, the Mojave rattler, curled up and rattling franticly only a couple feet from the trail. I threw some rocks to scare it off. No luck. So then I afghani hit it with a rock and it went crazy. Snapping and lunging at the air around it. From here I decided to just go all the way. I got a big rock and put it out of it's misery. But out here on the trail we don't waste things or leave trash, so I decided to eat it for dinner. I cut the head off and buried it, skinned the snake. I kept the skin and the rattle safe and then walked just far enough to be a safe distance from the highway and cooked it over an open fire. A little salt and a side of mashed potatoes made it so good. The three foot rattler made a great meal!