I've finished my month of hiking a segment of the Pacific Crest Trail in the Sierra Nevadas and have returned to the ranch in eastern Oregon. Actually, I've been back for a while, but only recently have I had the chance to get another laptop out of storage. It's a dusty Compaq Presario that's nearly 10 years old, but after a few days of compiling a linux kernel customized, stripped down, and streamlined for older hardware, I've now got a laptop that is as functional for basic tasks as any of the fancy new ones. The screen on the first laptop I had been using here died, and I hadn't gotten around to ordering the part to repair it. I've also been able to borrow the satellite modem again. All this is running on what is now 3 45 Watt solar panels and a bank of car batteries powered by the rapidly dwindling intervals of sunlight available as the days shorten and winter approaches.
Getting around by public transportation in the US, especially in rural areas, is more difficult than it seems like it should be in a rich and “developed” country. It involves long (as in waiting a couple of days for a bus or train and being stuck as I was in Portland for a day). I've read that 3rd world/developing countries often have better public transportation networks than what is available here. Here on the other hand, much of the public transportation infrastructure which included train service that was accessible from virtually anywhere in the country no matter how rural, was ripped up after WWII.
That said, the ride back from my hike was not too bad. After finishing at Mt. Whitney (that section was a zoo with so many other people (Southern Californians) hiking up the same route as myself), I caught a 4 am CREST bus at Lone Pine. The bus was already crowded at that hour and I felt lucky to get a seat. I got on near to the last. I was kind of worried about how I would smell. I say this after having worn the same clothes, th esame pants, underwear, shirt, shoes, and socks for around 1 month while doing very strenuous activity. I tried to keep from stinking by washing everything with stream or lake water and a drop of shampoo every few days. Except that I'm using a horse watering trough for bathing water, that's also how I'm staying clean here at the ranch.
I was to travel north on that bus to Reno, Nevada. But by the time the bus had reached Mammoth Lakes, about half way to Reno, I needed a break from the ride. After being relatively alone in the mountains for a month (more than 2 months counting the time in Eastern Oregon), it takes a while to get used to crowds. So I exited the bus, puttered around town, and then checked into a hostel.
After spending several hours in town (mostly reading, journaling, and drinking coffee), I started to feel as though I might be up for doing something social. So I joined up with some people at the hostel who were on their way to a party a local brewery was catering. Once there, I ate my fill of free grilled brautwurst, corn-on-the-cob and beer. This event was a very lucky find and was all very welcome after a month of eating powdered eggs, cliff bars, tuna packets, granola, cooscoos, tortillas. My diet wasn't quite that bad the whole time. I had often foraged when I wasn't busy trying to maintain my mileage. The tastiest foods I had on the hike included pine needles (You'd be surprised at what tastes good after eating powdered eggs day after day, and according to the GEM SAS Collin's Survival Guide, tea made from them is a rich source of vitamin C, a nutrient that I make sure to ingest regularly after a brush with scurvy as a college student), pine nuts, and an occasional fresh brook trout roasted in a piece of foil with wild onions, berries, various roots, tubers, and mushrooms (an edible species of Bolete was abundant along much of the trail) .
The next morning after the party, I rode the 8:30 bus to Reno, transferred to Sacramento, then transferred to an Amtrak train bound for Portland.
Train rides are sometimes their own unpredictable adventure. A ride can be fun as you talk to people and pass through sublimely beautiful landscapes, or it can be a Hell Ride. I think I recently blogged about a couple of really, really horrible train rides. Briefly, one time for example, a passenger (he had boarded in Sacramento) stood up, and in the space between his seat and the one in front, he pulled down his pants and simultaneously sprayed blasts of diarrhea and urine out of his body. The foul smell made staying in the car unbearable. Unfortunately, the train was crowded/booked solid and there were no available seats in other cars for me to retreat to. I had to sit there and endure the stench and ensuing nausea and burning sensation in my eyes.
And another time when my gf was riding Amtrak alone, some homeless people got on in Sacramento. Again, Sacramento. That city's train station borders the down town area which fro some reason attracts hordes of the homeless, drunks, and crack-heads. Sometimes they sneak on the trains without a ticket or the money to buy one. Anyway, one of them randomly walked up to her, accused her of stealing his bag of day-old bagels, and threatened to kill her, and then he assaulted another passenger. There was a police investigation that stopped the train for several hours because of that. He and some others were taken to jail.
Anyway, this train was full as usual. The conductor assigned me to a seat next to a very drunk and belching man of Mexican ethnicity who wore a thick black mustachio that made him look like Cheech Marin. Somebody whispered to me that he had been drinking since he got on in San Diego earlier that morning. It was now around 11:30 pm. He would occasionally wake up from his stupor belch, and make belligerent comments that didn't make sense. In one exchange, he was angry at me because I have the appearance of an Eastern European and he was mad because he thought I was a foreigner and that I couldn't speak English. This went on for a few minutes. Then he calmed down, said he was sorry, and gave me one of his beers.
Any way, I was thinking of the empty seat behind me, the very last seat in the back of the last car. Although it was the conductor's seat, I moved back there and started reading. Then, within a half hour, the conductor returned (it was her seat) and, despite my protest, made me move back with the drunk. But she promised to give me her seat after she made her rounds and went to the crew's quarters.
Within a half hour after that, a Medical Marijuana Guy who was sitting a few seats ahead of me started handing out hash brownies to some of the passengers who were still awake including myself. A scarfed down the brownie. It reminded me that I was still quite hungry from my hike. As though on cue, the conductor returned, put me back in th empty seat, and gifted my with a bag of barbequeud ribs which I really enjoyed.
I arrived in Portland the afternoon of the next day, too late to catch the bus to eastern Oregon. So I camped in the woods in Forest Park (a 10 mile long park that begins a couple of miles from the Amtrak station) while I waited for the bus that wouldn't leave for eastern Oregon until the afternoon of the day after. And finally made it back here.
But I've been feeling very nostalgic for Djarums lately. 
