Day 130 - Pie-mania!

Pie Town lived up to its name. We had the honor of having dinner with Nita (of the Toaster House) and Ajo (of magical hats). During dinner, we had a lot of pie talk: crust preferences (thick or thin), preferred shortening (butter, lard, Crisco, or combo), thickener (flour, cornstarch, tapioca, none at all!), topping (crumb, lattice, crust), etc. I had no idea I had so many opinions on pie, but it was a rousing discussion.

Then, topped off with a very competitive game of Scrabble, which Nita took with both style points and overall score. Nita and Ajo were great company. Thanks for everything!

Also, we did a quick tour of Pie Town to look at the VLA satellite, and the windmill museum. Then followed by a slack pack in the afternoon with Masa, who is a fascinating guy. He's a Japanese hiker, and will become the 2nd Asian triple crowner when he finishes in a few weeks. He's a friend of Jackaroo, who I met on the AT and JMT. And, he's working on completing the Japan Trail, which will be 1,600+ km when completed, and stretch the length of the country. Glad we had a chance to get to know him.

Oh, and in one of those, "only on the trail" moments, someone made an offhand joke about going to go see the Grand Canyon tomorrow. And it blossomed from an offhand joke into a full-blown adventure. Another hiatus from the trail, and we'll be back on Sunday.

Mileage: ~17mi from Pie Town to the brown house on Ed Jones Rd