Casa de Luna

Hi everyone, yet another post from yet another town / trail angel stop, this time at the eccentric hippie home of Teri and Joe Anderson called Casa de Luna. They are both great people with big hearts, interesting stories to tell... and a very weird sense of humor. I was able to book it here from Agua Dulce in only 8 hours, covering the 24 miles between towns before 2:30 and the afternoon heat set in. The trail was through some fairly featureless hills marked by ruler-straight lines as the path made a slow, relentless climb up and over before descending to town. I hurried mainly in order to get here before dinner was served; they make taco salad every night and pancakes every morning, as well as offering rides to the trail any time, day or night.

While the Saufleys are very efficient and clean, they have a 2 night maximum. The Andersons are more of a jumbled hot mess, and they virtually require people to stay several days. So, despite my race over here, I have holed up at Casa de Luna for yet another zero day, bringing my average mileage down even more. I'll call it a wash given that I played 2 strenuous, action packed games of frisbee golf on the neighborhood course, a sport which surely must burn as many calories as hiking 25 miles a day in snow covered mountains. As a bonus I did get to explore their community, called Green Valley, which, despite being part of Los Angeles County, is very remote and packed with characters. The resident loafer, named Doug, gave me a tour of a local artists crazy sweet welding studio, of which I am very jealous, and gave us the lowdown on some of the more colorful people in the 1,200 resident town.

Teri and Joe are by far the, um, most vibrant shall we say. They like to mess with the hikers when they first arrive, giving them false directions and feigning ignorance about the "local trail angels" while staring them right in the face. They also enjoying telling the story of how they got in the buisness, a long, detailed and oft rehearsed affair that apparently requires a bit of improve on their part. The requisite hiker photo inevitably requires getting mooned by Teri (hence Casa de Luna), and Memorial Day Weekend is host to the hiker oil wrestling competition, an event which is sure to be their legacy. Sadly, I will not be here for that, though we did get to see the video.

Once again I hope to be heading out tomorrow. The same crew has been travelling together on and off for a bit, so hopefully we'll all be going at about the same pace until we hit Tehachapi in another 80 or so miles of desert walking. After that it on to Kennedy Meadows and the start of the snowy Sierra... or not. I haven't decided what the course will be yet, though I'm sure it will fall into place shortly. As always, I will try to keep you posted, talk to you later all.