Day 49 : Nero in Kennedy Meadows

Friday 7th 2013
Mile 798 to mile 702 : Kern river to Kennedy Meadows
Mileage : 4

Today I arrived at Kennedy Meadows proper, and what a god send it was to finally get there. I know I said in my last post that i was done with SoCal yesterday, but infact Pan and I stopped a few miles short in order to get one night of decent sleep and not get sucked into drinking beer late into the night catching up with other hikers. I definitely made the right decision. I woke up feeling fresh for the first time

in over a week, glad that there was no need to be up and make miles before the heat of the day. When Pan and I finally did get on the move the 4 miles pretty much flew by, and before I knew it we had arrived at Kennedy Meadows.

Kennedy Meadows consists of 2 and only 2 establishments : the General Store and Tom's Internet Cafe. Between these two places there is everything one needs to rest up and prepare for the Sierra Nevada. The Sierra Nevada will hopefully be as far removed from the desert sections as possible. There will be real mountains with snow on them, rivers and lakes everywhere, wildlife, and best of all, cool air thanks to the higher elevations. But before all that I will be taking a zero or two to let the body recover from the ordeal that was Section F.

Thanks to Aloha, myself, Pan & Kat sent into Ridgecrest to try and find somewhere to use the internet and buy some beer for Dishcloth's birthday, who is turning 33 tomorrow. On the approach to Ridgecrest, which is about an hour away KM by car, we stopped at a tiny petrol station with a small convenience store attached. In this little convenience I found, to my incredible surprise, an amazing selection of english ales ripe for the picking (see photo). Why a nondescript little shop in a nondescript little town in a nondescript part of the Mojave desert should be stocking Boddingtons, Hobgoblin, London Pride and the like is beyond me. But i most certainly appreciated it. There was even a Wychwood beer called Scarecrow that i'd never heard of, but was nevertheless delicious. Dishcloth is partial to ales, so I bought a healthy selection for us to sample together, and after taking on some calories we piled back into the car and went back up the road to KM. Another objective of the trip to Ridgecrest was to buy some presents for Dischcloth. Although i doubt there was an intentional sabotage, the Union flag that I carefully crafted in Tehachapi did not even make it out of the car that took him back to the trail head to start last weeks hike. This means that Dishcloth, unlike most of the rest of PRT, has not been carrying a stupid present for the last 140 miles like the rest of us have been doing. For his birthday, Dishcloth received a stunning piece of hiker apparel in the form of a peach coloured summer skirt, a WWF wrestling belt that will have to be strapped to his pack along with everything else, and a miniature fan that he will have to carry heavy batteries for should he wish to use it. Pictures of Dishcloth and his presents to be uploaded shortly.

London Pride, Bombardier, Double Chocolate Stout, Boddingtons,  Hobgoblin  and Spitfire to name but a few of the  bizarely good selection of english ales to be had in Ridgecrest

Boddingtons, the Cream of Manchuria