"Stop whining," John said. "Are you hungry? I know I am. Hey! look. That must be the trail right there." John said pointing to the opening across the road."
Anthony pulled out his GPS. "There's a campsite not far from here," Anthony said. "We can eat there and if it's a nice place, I say we set up camp for the night."
"That's fine with me," John said.
They didn't get very far before they heard kids voices and laughter. The walked in that direction. They reached the edge of a parking lot and saw a toilet. "I'm heading for the toilet. digging little poop holes in the forest is getting really old," Anthony said."I hope there's a freshwater spigot near that toilet," John said.
"Are you a PCT backpacker?" a little girl in pigtails asked John as he replenished their water containers."
John smiled. "Yes. How do you know about the PCT?"
The little girl, who looked like she was no older than ten said, "I did my first part of the PCT when I was seven. My daddy and my uncle took me with them to..." She put her finger to her lip and looked up. "To Mammoth Lakes and then we hiked on the PCT to Tool me. Not that's not it. To, to old me or something like that, I can't remember."
"Tuolumne Meadows?" Anthony asked.
""Yeah! That's it."
A man in shorts and hiking boots and a woman in shorts, a halter top, and tennis shoes walked up to the girl, Anthony, and John. Two little girls followed them. The girl's father told John and Anthony that he had completed the whole trail when he was in college. He and his wife have been taking their daughter on segments of the PCT for the past three years.
"Tomorrow, Daddy and I are going to start and go to Crater Lake. It will take us five days.,"Her brown eyes opened up. "Daddy says it's fifty miles away. My mom will meet us there. She isn't coming with us this time." The girl leaned in close to John and Anthony. She narrowed her eyes as she whispered, "She's pregnant." And then her eyes lit up. "I'm going to be a big sister again."
"She tells everybody," the mother said. "You'd think that with all the fighting she does with her two little sisters, that she wouldn't be as excited." They all laughed.
"We always start a hiking trip with a steak dinner," the mother said. "We have far more than we can eat. Why don't you join us?"
"Thank you," Anthony said,
"Yeah, thanks. That sure beats any dehydrated meal," John said.
They thanked their hosts and hiked a little further until Anthony spotted a place to set up camp. "I'm so full and that steak was so good," he said as he put his backpack down.
The following morning John took a photo of Mt Mcloughlin.
"I wonder how big that mountain was before it blew its top," Anthony said. "This lava field goes on forever."
Yeah. I'm glad they have a well-maintained trail cutting through it," John said.
Click the link to hear the Lava song that Anthony sang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh4dTLJ9q9o
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