Camped at mile 267.2. One half mile beyond the one-third mark. 200 vertical feet above the Gila River, a real river with flowing water and cottonwoods and a bridge.
We had a hell-of-a nice day with many noteworthy events.
Our alarm (the call of the Black Oystercatcher) awakens us five minutes before nautical dawn and we are walking before sunrise. That gave us time to walk some miles before the weather got uncomfortably warm.
At about noon we'd already walked ~13 miles, and we made the obvious decision to walk another 4 miles and hitch to the Kearny pizzeria rather than sit in the sun to eat our nuts, crackers, cheese, tuna, tang and chocolate. Brilliant choice.
Huge salad, great pizza, cold beer for James and ice tea without a proper ice tea spoon for Amy. Across the street was a great IGA (unusually good grocery store for a town of 1000 people) where we bought things we crave -- Ben and Jerry's ice cream, oranges, apples, bananas, yoghurt, juice. The ice cream we ate in the air conditioned pizzeria. The rest we'll eat for breakfast.
Lorraine and Gary run the pizzaria. Lorraine was there and could not have been a better host. Great company, nice person, comfortable establishment which clearly serves as the community hub. She offered to shuttle us around - to the laundromat, back to the trail, whatever we needed.
I broke my hiking pole an hour before town, but the ACE Hardware next to the pizzeria had PVC tubing and a small workshop Jim used to build a repair sleeve. So lucky this tiny town had a hardware store, and within 100 feet of both the pizzeria and the grocery store! Simple delights like that cause great pleasure.
Just before we left the trail we passed out first thru-hikers. Five people in three parties, clustered under a makeshift shade structure at a trailhead. In the spring all hikers are northbound and move forward like a great centipede. There are perhaps 30-50 of us out here, most start sometime during the month of March, but we don't see others unless we overtake or are overtaken.
Two Iraq/Afghanistan vets hiking to work out their demons, part of the Warriors Adventures program. http://www.outdoors.org/publications/outdoors/2016/features/bridging-the-gap-how-warrior-hike-helps-vets-walk-off-the-war.cfm
A quiet man and woman from the UK ("having trouble getting used to the heat").
A solo Tucson native woman about my age.
We chatted for a bit, and expect to see them tomorrow since none of them went to town.
After our town visit we hitched back to the trail and walked in the not-so-hot hour before sunset. James the Master Campsite Finder pulled a rabbit out of the hat and found a terrific little perch on an otherwise steep trail corridor.
We are healthy, happy, well fed, and enjoying all the nice people we met today.
The photo is a large mural at the pizzeria where we added our names!
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