Day 0 – Reno to Old Station

I get up with Patti at 3:45am to drive to the airport. It is just as well. I had been laying there wide awake for 30 minutes going over everything in my mind. I toss my super-loaded backpack in the car along with a duffel bag (thanks Dwayne and Lisa) full of food to leave at Old Station for the second leg of my hike.

At the airport I cram my pack into the duffel and drag it into the airport. Remember the scene from Office Space where the guy is stuck in traffic so he switches to a moving lane only to have that lane stop and the one he was in start moving. Right. That happens THREE times in the airport: baggage check, security and the bathroom. I board with 15 minutes to spare.

I do not get a window seat so I keep rubbernecking out the window from the aisle seat. The views are spectacular even across two people. I realize how ironic it would be to get a repetitive stress injury in my neck before even reaching the trail. When I chuckle, the guy in the middle seat quickly looks out the window, too. What IS so funny out there? I take one of four naps. When I wake, I realize that the beverage cart has passed by me as I slept. I wonder if they tried to wake me.

I take my first ever Uber. It is super easy and the guy who picks me up has a huge car with leather seats! He looks confused when I tell him I want to be dropped of on the side of the freeway. “I am hitching from there to Susanville on my way to the trail,” I say. He says, “How bout you just let me take you?” I say, “I have to make my money last all the way to Oregon.”

From the side of the freeway it takes half an hour to get a ride. A guy stops and gave me a cold drink – something with aloe vera chunks floating in it. Finally, a nice lady who used to be a professional truck driver picks me up and takes me to a lonesome truck stop (surprise) called Hallelujah Junction five miles up the road. I do not start praising Jesus. Maybe I should.

I walk up the ramp to the freeway. Hallelujah, a guy pulls off for me. Eerily, he looks like he could be the devil. I briefly think of the temptation of Christ. I don’t like my odds. Turns out the devil is a super nice. His name is Paul. He is an apostle in his own way traveling around the world, checking in on friends and spreading the gospel of freedom. (He has recently retired.) He takes me all the way to highway 36 into Susanville. He gives me some kind of crispy rice treat. Thanks, Paul. It was fun talking.

Jim picks me up next. He takes me into the heart of Susanville (population 16,000 counting the 4000 inmates that reside in the prison there.) Again, like everyone who picks up hitchhikers, he is super nice. He has recently moved to Susanville because building a home in Reno was too expensive. I learn something. I thought that California was, by default, the most expensive place to build.

I walk past the Susanville fire station to a place where cars can actually pull over to pick me up. I have not been there five minutes when a quiet young man named Reese approaches me from the parking lot asking if I need a ride. When I get in the car Reese says that picking up a hitchhiker has been on his bucket list, but his girlfriend had forbid it when she was in the car. I laugh and stare at him in admiration. What kind of bucket list includes that? Well, I guess mine did when I was his age. Reese and I talk about a lot of random stuff as strangers do, and he ends up taking me all the way to Old Station! When I tell Reese that he doesn’t have to go through all this trouble he says that it is no problem because “everything around here is an hour away anyway.” I am stunned by his care-free generosity. I like how this trip is starting.

Reese does not remember having ever been to Old Station until we pull into the Very-Hiker-Friendly convenience store (Old Station Fill-up) next to JJ’s. The nice people in the store let me camp out behind the store and even let me keep my extra food in the store overnight so that I don’t have to open my own convenience store for bears overnight.

As I write this I am fending off a VERY aggressive chipmunk who keeps charging at me. I swat him away with my foot. I think he is trying to separate me from my food. He is now lurking at the base of a nearby tree, measuring me. Clandestine measures may be his next tactic.

It is amazingly hot here, and windy. Did God, distracted in his bathroom, mistakenly point his blow dryer at Old Station? Maybe. I hope it cools off before bed (9pm). My ramen is hydrating on a nearby table. (Yes, may the nighttime bears be drawn to a picnic table other than mine.)

In the morning, the plan is to hitchhike to the post office 3 miles away and mail the xtra food I brought with me to trail locations I will visit later. The post office opens at 11. How far I go after that depends on the heat. I have a heavy bag and a newbie hiker body so we must be smart about this. But the day went well and I met a bunch of interesting people. Tomorrow the real fun begins.