August 9th and 10th
Double zero days (no miles hiked), except for the walking around town chores. We arrived so late on Tuesday the 8th and it felt like it took forever to get settled into the Shred Life Eco Hostel. When I called from trail the message was classic stoner dude. He said to leave a text and he would get back to us. He actually responded right away and answered the phone when I called. We had made a list of questions of what we were looking for in our accommodations and everything was yes, yes, yes we’ve got that, we can do that. Questions like: are you on the bus route, can we do laundry, will you hold our stuff so we can do a slack-pack day (day hiking with only your lunch and water). The other fancy hostel couldn’t accommodate our needs and was twice as expensive. Zach, the owner, was just like he sounded on the phone. Total stoner dude, and asked we were 420 friendly. We assured him that that wasn’t a problem for us but personally we don’t drink or smoke. His response was ‘how do you have fun?’ We hike! Then we all had a good laugh. The place was funky but the kitchen and bathrooms looked clean. The girls only bunk room was clean with nicely made up bunk beds, and clean towels provided. The closet had been converted to homemade wooden lockers. Zach was very attentive to the needs of his guests and kept up with the house hold chores himself. He’s a little disorganized and has quite a few projects going on around the house. There are a few monthly renters living here and it’s a little like staying with the lost boys in Peter Pan. Everyone is nice and respectful. I stayed up too late doing our laundry so Jodie could sleep and I slept well when I went to bed.
Zero mile days sometimes feel more exhausting than hiking. We are catching up on much needed rest. We are staying in a different and cheeper town with REI and a better grocery store. REI girls bathroom in Dillon:
We were up early to ride the bus and check in at a clinic for Jodie’s acute mountain sickness/altitude sickness and picked a prescription. Then we rode 3 free county buses one way to go to the post office in Breckenridge. We had a half hour layover in Frisco and a man wearing a Whole Foods apron walked by with a collection of shopping carts. I hollered at Jodie “Whole Foods!” we’ve got 30 minutes!” So we ran through Whole Foods and grabbed a chicken, veggies, chips and dip and made it back to the bus station in time to quickly eat a couple of chicken legs like the farrel girls we are! I’m so glad I grabbed some napkins. I drained off some chicken juice, zipped the bag and carefully placed it in the outside mesh pocket of my backpack. We’re riding the bus and feeling better with some food in our bellies and I was sitting there thinking how good that chicken smelled. Then I started thinking my backpack is going to smell like chicken, and we’ve seen some evidence of bears in the woods. OMG I’m going to smell like chicken!! So I took it out of my backpack and carried a chicken around for the rest of the day.We got our resupply box at the post office and I set the chicken on the counter while the postman was looking for another package. We started chatting and talking about the trail, because who would walk around town with a chicken and giant backpack than a hiker.
We sat outside and ate some more lunch then went to Starbucks to kill time and waited to try and connect with some trail friends for dinner. As we were finally giving up and taking the bus to the Breckenridge station to get another bus back home they had just arrived at the Starbucks. Bummer. The trip home was taking so long we took an Uber after the 2nd bus ride home.
Today we slept in, blogged like crazy, walked to the grocery store and had a very busy and chaotic grocery shopping experience. We caught the bus home and rested. Our resupply food dumped in a disorganized pile on the floor. Jodie got a text from Watercolor and her sister Rush More and they were on there way to stay with us here and also had plans to slack pack tomorrow. That was just what we needed to get us motivated to organize our stuff and clean up our room that we would soon be sharing.
Watercolor(trail name) painting a wall:
I guess I’m keeping my original trail name Stone Soup, everyone was so happy with another fabulous and creative meal I whipped out tonight. I’m going bed with a full belly. Looking forward to being back on trail. I feel better out there, it’s been a busy couple of days!