I’ve officially been here a week.  It’s been quite a busy trailhead – way more than I’d originally expected.  Well, that’s not true – I don’t know what I expected.  In fact, I don’t remember setting any expectations.  I remember hoping that there would be enough cell coverage to work, and not too hot.  So far, it’s been better than I could expect.

With regards to hikers, I honestly didn’t know what to expect.  My friends Melanie & Bryan had been out here hiking & doing trail magic a few weekends prior and didn’t see anyone.  I hoped that I’d get a couple thru-hikers…I mean, I have all of these supplies just sitting here.

Most of the supplies were intended for my thru-attempt, but as you all know, that didn’t go as planned.  So, I have Cliff Builder Bars, Cliff Bars, pop-tarts, cookies, coffee packets, trail mix & Skittles…hell, I even have some unused, home-made, dehydrated dinners.  All the stuff that a hiker is probably sick of by now.

The thing that has gone over the best has been the oranges.  At the last minute I plucked a couple of bags of oranges and tossed them in my stash.  The wide-eyed looks of lust has come over every single hiker I’ve offered them too…I knew my drug-dealing days weren’t over.  Now, I’m just peddling a different buzz; this time it’s a natural insulin burst as the sweet orange slips into the blood stream.

Anyway, to make a long story less long this trailhead has been abuzz…in more ways than one.  In fact, about 2 minutes ago a swarm of bees passed through…I shit you not.  A loud buzzing noise started getting louder.  By the time I knew what was happening the bees were flyin’ by my open trailer door.  I toyed with the idea that I should quickly shut the door, but in order to do I would have had to poke my head out the trailer.  I opted to just sit tight and hope…you see, bees and me don’t really mix.  Luckily they had bee places to go and bee shit to do so they keep moving.

It’s also been abuzz with hikers.  Yesterday I had two groups saunter in as well as a guy that’s scouting out the trail by bike/truck/motorcycle.  He has this Toyota truck that he puts his bikes in; he drops off the mountain bike, drives a few miles away and parks his truck, then rides his motorcycle back.  Finally, he rides his mountain bike, along the trail to his truck then returns to get his motorcycle.

This group came in pretty early.  They sat for a while and chatted.

Iso, Lee and Beans, on their way out.

Mark and Illona also stopped in…

Well prepared for the desert sun!

Finally, later that afternoon Pirate Two-Sticks and CC returned.  Pirate (real name: Rick Obermiller) has some pretty amazing experience.  This dude is a volunteer park ranger, does trail maintenance, used to be an AZT Trail Steward, and even wrote the geology section in the AZT guide.  He gave me a signed copy!  SCORE!!

 One of the best treats so far has been pizza.  Kearney has a place called “Old Time Pizza”.  They are smack dab in the middle of town.  They are willing to deliver pizza and water to the Florence-Kelvin trailhead.  Anyway, I decided to patronize them because they’re taking care of the hikers.  I had the teriyaki chicken pizza.  It wasn’t bad.  Unfortunately, because I was shuttling hikers, I didn’t get to the pizza until about 45 minutes later.  By then it was a bit cold.  It was still pizza though!

Anyway, I am sure having a great time.  There’s NOTHING to do but hike and get work done…so, as you might expect, I’m getting quite a bit of stuff accomplished.

Well, that’s it for now…see you outside.