PCT Day 17-20, where some seriously needed rest days at Trail Angel Sheila’s house!
Mile: 209.6 to 226.2 (16.6 miles)
Start: Comfy bed at Sheila’s house in Palm Desert
End: Soft sandy tentsite next to Mission Creek
At Trail Angel Sheila’s house (aka our adopted grandma) Shannon and I would wake up every morning and Sheila was already cooking breakfast for us! It was amazing. Sheila had tea in a personal teapot for me with a cup that said “Diva” on it which was hilarious. For Shannon she had loads of coffee and delicious food. Typically we would spend the morning journaling and playing tug-of-war and chase with Waldo the dog who was really excited to show us all of his dog toys. We would eat lunch, then usually the afternoons were spent swimming in the pool and having some adult beverages. We’d make dinner or go out for food later in the evening, sometimes accompanied by adult beverages on the patio to watch the sunset. And it was just so much fun!!! Sheila lived on a golf course so we got to see lots of animals like ducks, birds feeding their babies and supposedly there was even a turtle that came to lay eggs in her yard. The beautiful flowers in her garden attracted hummingbirds and a hive of bees that had taken up residence in her old bird house where you could see them buzzing in there. But we didn’t get too close to the bees because we were a little nervous of being stung!
One of her neighbors is really funny. He lives on a golf course but doesn’t like all the golf course balls going into his yard. So he complains constantly to the golf club manager about the golfballs coming into his yard from golfers who accidentally hit them there. In reality he really doesn’t have that many golfballs coming into his yard and just complains because he doesn’t have anything better to do. That’s what we think. But sometimes, what Sheila said, sometimes she’ll get up really early in the morning when it’s still kind of dark out and sit watching the sunrise from her back porch. Allegedly she may or may not have seen the grumpy neighbor legitimately swimming (okay, wading) in the pond on the golf course, fishing out dozens of golf balls under the cover of darkness. He then brings these balls to the golf club management as “evidence” of how many golf balls are in his yard, even though he has to walk off his property, down to the pond and goes swimming essentially to fish out all the golf balls. I don’t know what’s wrong with some people. But this man sounds like he needs a hobby! Maybe he should have the “Diva” tea cup…
One of the mornings at Sheila’s we visited the Living Desert in Palm Desert, which is a really cool zoo, and one of the top 10 zoos in the United States. We saw all sorts of desert animals like rattlesnakes, which was nice to see them behind glass in a cage instead of under our feet for once! We saw a mountain lion which was kind of scary because we actually didn’t see the predator lurking in the trees and brush for a long time. It was looking right at us the whole time and we couldn’t spot it for at least five minutes which was unsettling. It made me think of how many times we hadn’t seen a mountain lion so far, but that one probably had seen us… We decided not to think about it since we’d be hitting up the trail again soon where the mountain lions weren’t safely tucked away behind glass.
We visited the giraffes which was really cool. Sheila said that we could feed the giraffes but when we found out it was a couple pieces of lettuce for $7, we decided we’d save our $7 for the tacos that we’re going to get after we leave the zoo and leave the expensive lettuce made of gold or something to the other visitors.
One of the nights we went to a really nice Italian restaurant in downtown Palm Springs with a water fountain, hanging string lights and it was just so beautiful. We sipped on glasses of local California wine and beer and ate yummy Italian food as palm trees waved lazily in the early evening breezes. It was perfect.
One of the days Sheila had her prayer group come over. The ladies were really nice and actually brought us gluten-free snacks and meals for the trail which was really sweet of them! We couldn’t believe it. One of the mornings, Sheila woke up early there earlier than normal and cooked Shannon an entire pan of homemade cinnamon rolls, which Katie could not eat because she’s gluten intolerant from the flour. And so Shannon bravely and nobly took it upon himself to eat three or four cinnamon rolls every time he sat down at the table until that whole pan was finished and licked clean. Gotta take one for the team every now and then! In Shannon’s words patting his belly full of cinnamon rolls, “It hurts so good.” Gross lol!
When it was time to leave Sheila’s place, we were all really sad, especially Waldo the dog who was getting spoiled by all of the tug-of-war and chase games we were playing with him. We knew that we had to go back to the trail since all the weight that we had lost over the past two weeks was now gained back (and then some!) from all the yummy food that Sheila fed us. We were so grateful to be well rested, finally, and our blistered and broken feet healed up. It was really sad to leave Sheila’s place but we were so grateful to have made new friends.
On the way out back to the trail, we each bought fresh date milkshakes, which fresh Palm dates were in season right now. They were sooo good! Yum fiber!!! We were really sad when she brought us back to the trail but we knew we had to go or we 1) would’ve eaten everything in her house and 2) wouldn’t fit in our clothes anymore.
When we got back to the trail, it seemed like it was somehow windier than when we had left, which we couldn’t really understand. When Sheila dropped us off on a desolate side road, the wind blustering and the trail just a dirt path skirting a neighborhood, she asked us, “Are you sure you want to go hiking?” And even though it would have been really nice to stay, we knew we had to keep going, or we were going to look like blown up balloons with the amount of food that we would keep eating.
The trail took us around the tiny town of Whitewater, California behind people’s houses, trash and broken bottles strewn everywhere and wasn’t super pretty for a little while. As we got up into the hills, we crossed onto some land with a lot of warning signs that were a little troubling. The warning signs stated not to interact with the wild animals if they approached you and to be really careful of the wild animals and to watch yourself because you’re on camera. We were skirting a wind turbine area, the same place where I believe my former manager had told us about the people managing the wind farms being required to bring shotguns with them when they go out and inspect the wind turbines because of all the mountain lions and other wildlife. I know I was a little scared but we kept going. Even though we saw what looked like a lot of large cat poop on the trail, we tried not to think about it too much and kept ascending up into the mountains.
Besides the danger from the local mountain lions, the wind farm was pretty cool, except most of the wind turbines weren’t running today. It could have been because it was too windy and enough power had already been generated. The trail took us up and over these beautiful hillsides with grassy fields and then down into the Whitewater Preserve, which was a big delta where the mountain rivers collected. Some of the hikers said that you could see bighorn sheep in the mountains up there but we didn’t see anything probably because of the flying gravel and sand going in our eyes.
We kept hiking and hit a sandy beach with a beautiful river flowing through it and ran into our friend Taco Bell Scott, who we hadn’t seen since the town of Julian, about 100 miles before. In Julian he had a severe case of sun poisoning to the point where he couldn’t go outside during the day at all, or he’d feel really, really sick. Now we saw him and he seemed a lot better and didn’t have sun poisoning anymore, but did say he had a little bit of foot trouble. He had camped out on this beautiful beach side and had been there for almost 24 hours. But with the wind picking up tossing gravel in your face, it wasn’t too fun anymore so he was hiking on and doing a bunch of night hiking through this next section of trail.
WThis next section of trail many of the hikers referred to as “Hell” because you had to find your way in and out of brush, bushwhacking at points because the trail wasn’t very well marked since it followed a river into the mountains. We hiked on and up over some dry riverbeds, crossing a couple creeks and then found a beautiful sandy camp site shaded by several cottonwood trees right next to a shallow creek. We set up our tent in the soft sugary sand and enjoyed a nice dinner sitting on the still warm beach. As the stars came out, we were soon lulled to sleep by the burbling creek and the frogs and toads ribbiting next our tent. It felt good to get some exercise and we were so grateful to find an amazing place to sleep.
