Legs and Borders

The last stop on my American adventure, it was also the first stop when I arrived to US four and a half months ago. I remember LA did not made a great first impression on me, it was in fact a major culture shock. It felt very different this time around though. First of all I contacted Rigel (trail name Rifle) few days ago asking if I could spend two nights at his place before the departure and he said yes. I met him three months ago during a trail magic he was hosting around RV resort close to LA, we got talking and he gave me his email address saying that if I would need a place to crash before going back to Europe I should let him know. And so I did, not having much faith that he will reply to my email but voila, he did and he was very positive about it. I arrived at his place yesterday in the afternoon later than expected as the morning Flix bus from Santa Barbara got cancelled and I had to book another one. Rifle's house was situated in North Hollywood ten minutes away from the...

"I'm in so much pain, I want to literally destroy something" Long Story. "When I started hiking I promised myself I'm going to write something everyday. Seven days later, it's done. I ain't writing no more" Beastmode. We woke up at 5am as agreed last evening with the plan to hike 25 miles to KOA (Kampgrounds of America) resort. The problem I had was that my right shin didn't fully recover during the night and it was still hurting, so I decided to hike slowly in a 'recovery mode' all day. Tank Top initially stuck with me in hopes that I might walk it off, but it wasn't getting any better, so he finally gave up and went faster. It was a cruisy path today without difficult stretches, the day was windy and quite cloudy, a welcome change to the stagnant heat of previous ones. There was only one water cache along the way at the North Fork Ranger Station maintained by ranger Todd, but luckily it was enough. I came down from the trail at 5:30...

"I got my trail name, because I pulled a tent stake out of the ground no one else could" King (Arthur) "I hiked with this guy called Kansas Express but we didn't talk for too long" King  (Kansas Express is doing Triple Crown challenge). Another big miles day, we woke up at 6am, started hiking shortly after. There was a first closure section of the trail few miles down the road, but luckily it had nothing to do with fire, it was about the frogs. To be precise the rare species of them occupying that stretch of the trail, we decided to take an alternate route around them, which was a little bit longer and was on the road. Around mile 400 we met the Field Trip family again, they hitchhiked around the closure and overtook us slightly. The path today was much easier than yesterday with more gentle ups and downs and it was definitely a welcome change, as yesterday my shins were trying to abandon the ship. Around midday we hit our first trail magic since Big Bear, it wa...

Today was a pretty straight forward, I visited two of the landmarks of LA, Getty Museum and Griffith Observatory. I decided to buy very affordable day pass for Metro (3.5$) which made those not easiest to reach destinations accessible. First I went on the Purple and Red Line to North Hollywood and then walked for an hour through Griffith park to reach the Observatory, it was very enjoyable little hike uphill. Then I went down on the Red line to the Union Station to buy my ticket to San Diego for tomorrow morning (44$), from there I went back to my starting point on the Purple line and finally sorted out my American phone number which should aid my GPS in times of need, I went for T Mobile's cheapest prepaid option (still it was 27$ though). After I've sorted all of that, I've alternated between two busses to reach Getty Museum which among the paintings of Goya, Rembrandt, El Grec...