day 17, May 10th, UPDATE shortly before 2N02 to Big Bear City and further on to Van Dysen Road,

We've made it to BBC and have had a delicious breakfast at Thelma's. At the Fire Department we took a shower (!!), we left our packs there (great service), again sent some little stuff home respectively forwarded somethig to Kennedy Meadows and right now we sit in a laundromat.

It was kind of hard to get some quaters to get the machine running as we didn't have any, the change machine was out of order and nobody except the guy at the gas station was willing to change. But now everything is working. Alina is off in her pretty skirt wearing her hair openly after today's shower as I sit in my rain gear in front of the washing machine.

Our plan today is to resupply after we washed and dryed our clothes and hit the trail later on. I hope that we will hit the trail around 3 or 4 p.m.

Exactly that we did. We started hiking after drining another Gatorade and after cheking Pocketmail again. No messages :-(

By the way a rattle snake crosed our trail and disappeared in the shrubb next to it but still fiercely rattling. No need to say that it scared me. We went around it in a big circle. But I should find out more about their territory, like how many can be expected in the same area and maybe when their mating season is. Do you know by any chance?

So now we camp together with The Jannetor, Crispy, Thor, Joe and another guy who liked to keep the campfire burning and Andy who probably now will be called Dr. Tart after explaining to us his Poptart methods and ethics. We had a very good laugh about this.  ¶ 08:53