Salad Days

As week four on the trail is approaching, I’m learning that if it’s not one thing it’s another. I’m also learning that keeping good company can make the worst aches and pains seem inconsequential; that hiking with people who make you laugh–the crying and squealing and almost pissing yourself kind of laugh–are the best people in the world to hike with.

Leap Frog and Liverpool Paul join Tuck and I on the climb out of Cajon Pass. It’s nice to have new company and new terrain for the first half of the day. We follow the trail as it crosses beneath interstate 15, walk in eerie silence beneath the mountainside through a corrugated steel tunnel, stand in wait beneath the warm desert sun as a tremendous freight train lurches across the tracks. On the other side, we wonder aloud what’s inside all of those shipping containers.

“Diapers.”

“Shower curtains.”

“Ice cream.”

“Dead bodies.”