Sobo again, and it feels so good
Back on the PCT, headed South to Mexico. Things I've missed about about SoCal which I saw today (in order):
- A deer hunting policeman who told us the PCT is dangerous and we should go home
- No water for 17 miles
- A tennis ball-sized tarantula
- A baby rattler
- Thunderstorm for the last 11 miles of the day

The last 11 miles were especially brutal. The thunderstorm was at its peak as we walked under powerlines. We crossed train tracks, and promptly lost the trail. Even after bushwacking to the next set of train tracks, we still couldn't find the trail. The sun set as we were looking, so we dug out our headlamps. We went down a connecting road, and wandered onto private property copiously covered with "no trespassing" signs. And a rusty tractor parked in a cactus patch. And a trailer home with lights on. And a pile of old auto tires in a rusting shed frame. So, not the best.

We turned off our headlamps so that it would be harder to aim shotguns at us. We followed the barbed wire fence until we figured our way out of private property.
Fortunately, we found the trail, and followed it through a tunnel under another set of train tracks. We finally got to the interstate, which the PCT crosses by running underneath through a box culvert (i.e. a pitch black tunnel with no apparent exit).

We worked up the courage to go through the tunnel and emerge under a road paralleling I-15. We walked up the unlit road and notice 4 parked cars, engines off. We noticed the first car had someone in the drivers seat--creepy. As we kept walking, the cars turned on their engines and manouvered around us. One u-turned abruptly to face us, shined high beams at us, then parked again. Gangles thinks we walked through a multiparty drug deal. I thought it was more likely to be a prostitution thing.

We skedaddled to the safety of the nearby McDonald's, then checked in to the Best Western. Zero tomorrow for Gangles' birthday. Back on the trail Thursday.