PCT day 78 - mile 1719 to mile 1721 (Independence Day, Ashland)

It was supposed to be a zero day.. and it nearly was! There was few issues I encountered in the afternoon which steered me to hike out of Ashland and I'm literally camping two miles away from the city.

The day was way better than expected, I woke up late, dry and clean in a comfortable bed and had a breakfast consisting of marionberry yogurt (a cultivar of blackberry developed and grown only in Oregon), three bananas, few spoonfuls of my old peanut butter to finish the jar and a black tea. After that I found some thread in the hiker box and sew holes in my Camino t-shirt to prolong its life and perhaps even finish the trail with it.

Then about 9:30am I went out to join the street parade for the Independence Day which was starting in half an hour. I was surprised by the amount of people that came to take part in celebrations, main street was teeming with people, families 'booked' a space by the road by marking it with a ribbon or chalk the day before. All sorts of community members and town figures were rolling past us on the street smiling and waving and the crowds were cheering for them. There were scout groups, hospital crews, fancy car owners, guy dressed as Abe Lincoln, brass bands, local restaurant employees, fishermen groups, junior baseball, football and aerobic teams, bicycling couple dressed as unicorns.. you name it! About 11am as a part of the event, two fighter jets (apparently F15's) flew low, directly over our heads making a lot of noise and getting everyone excited.

The parade finished at noon, then what seemed like about 30% of participants including myself went to the Lithia Park to listen to a reading of Declaration of Independence presented by a local actor and a concert of an orchestra followed by few other events. I stayed for the entire declaration reading (which was kind of boring, but people still clapped and cheered during the 'freedom' passages) and few tunes of the band, then went for a stroll around the park. After that I made my way back to the city centre to have a look what I could watch in the cinema as I wanted to see something for a really long time.

I arrived too late to watch 'Elvis' but 'Jurassic World: Dominion' was starting in 10 minutes, so I decided to give it a go. I bought the biggest popcorn and pepsi combo I've seen in my entire life (which I managed to eat because of hiker hunger) and went to take my place in the tiny projection room. The movie wasn't bad, I really wanted to dislike it but they played on nostalgia aspects from the original movie quite well. They brought Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum back on screen and it looked like the actors had a fairly good time participating. Scriptwriters intertwined the old cast with the new heroes lead by Chris Pratt towards the end of the movie and they faced the final obstacles as a team. The movie had few good action and scare scenes, I particularly liked the one where the character played by Bryce Dallas Howard has to hide underwater to dodge a deadly Freddy Krueger looking dino.

After the screening I bought a frozen 'Hungry Man' dinner in Safeway and went back to the hostel where I've been greeted by the horde of the bubble I was hiking with for the last couple of weeks, everyone but Camp Host and Tank Top was present. What's worse, I found my backpack kicked out of the room I was staying in last night, presumably because I didn't pay for the second night so I had to consider not having a bed for tonight and with the amount of hiker trash in the vicinity it was very likely! 

At this point I made a quick decision to try and call trail angel Skeeter, if he could come over and take me back on trail at this short notice I would just hike out and have the accomodation problem sorted. I gave him a call and he very kindly agreed to pick me up in half an hour! What an amazing guy, it spared me from having a random night on the sofa or the floor where I would probably not sleep much anyway, instead I could spend a peaceful night on the trail.

It wasn't perfect of course, but PCT hardly ever is. As we were driving back to the trail it started to rain, weather has been moody all day, when Skeeter dropped me off where he picked me up yesterday (the crazy bastard even gave me some dehydrated refried beans for goodbye!) I hiked two miles in a wet tall grass, making bottom half of my body soaked in water. In the end I managed to find a decent, unmarked camp spot by a footbridge not too far from the Interstate 5, which should make a good starting point for tomorrow.

Because I had so little time to make my final preparations I didn't sort out the resupply completely so I carry few extra cans and bags, which should have been repackaged and left at the hostel. Oh well, it's some extra weight for the next 40 miles where I will be able to dispose of it, it could have been way worse.

It was great to see how Americans celebrate 4th of July and finally have enough time to visit a cinema to watch surprisingly 'not as bad as I thought' movie. All in all an awesome day.

The parade:

Lithia Park declaration reading and concert: