A Boko-Maru With Gaia: Kennedy Meadows

After taking our second swim of the day, our fellow hikers pointed us to a shortcut into town following "the wash" (a dry riverbed). When we hit the dirt road we were somewhat disoriented and didn't know which way to go. Keep in mind that decisions like left or right can be mighty difficult when all we had to do for two months is follow the trail north. After spotting a hiker in the distance, we found our way into Tom's place where we were given a tour by workhorse - whose name is befitting because he has been a trail angel at three other stops! Kennedy Meadows consists of Tom's place and a general store that is two minutes up the road. That's it. We dropped our packs and cut Tortuga off mid sentence to make it to the general store for showers before they shut the water off at 5pm. Feeling so fresh and clean after our outhouse shower, we each indulged in a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream for dinner and made our way back to Tom's to set up camp. Tom collects vintage Rvs and trailers that are distributed to hikers on a first come first serve basis. Needless to say, our late arrival forced us to cowboys camp under the stars for another night. Every night, Tom projects a movie in his homemade amphitheater. Drama Queen and Ryan watched Old School while Linz played cards with new friends at the general store. After the movie, Drama and Ryan laid in their sleeping bags talking for hours under the plethora of meteorites. The conversations continued when Lindsay finally made her way to bed prompting our neighbor to "kindly" suggest we shut up on several occasions. In our defense, everyone knows that if you're looking for peace and quiet you're not going to get it at Tom's and should camp elsewhere.
The next morning, we woke to pancakes, orange juice, and coffee. We spent our zero lounging around the community airstream trailer occasionally meandering our way to the general store for different forms of socialization. The airstream houses couches, a game table, and 3 computers (2 functioning) for medieval Internet use. This is evident in that it took an hour and a half to process Lindsay's order for new gauges. Kennedy Meadows has no service and runs completely off of solar energy. To amuse ourselves, Ry played disc golf with Drama, Soup Nazi, and Bunk. Lindsay made all of the hikers the most delicious dessert they've ever had with Crazy Knees and Stealth. It consisted of a layer of Chips Ahoy, peanut butter, cinnamon toast crunch, honey, Oreo crumbles, and Nutella icing. Heavenly. We ended the evening with a hiker box dinner, Catch Me If You Can, plenty of conversation, and shooting stars.
The trailer blocked the morning sun allowing us to sleep until 8:30 am. After more pancakes, it was time to get down to business. We spent all day going through our mail and preparing our packs for the Sierras. Our gorgeous mother had overnighted Lindsay a new pair of shoes to replace the runnaway shoe. With our new law abiding bear canisters, Ry's pack weighed in at a whopping 44 pounds without water. Lindsay's weighed in at 30 pounds since she isn't a cow like Ryan. Eager to get to Whitney by the 16th, we took photos with our hiker family (Rainmaker, Drama, and Simba - who we had been hiking with for about three weeks) and said our farewells.