Miles hiked: 3.95.
Had a lazy morning since I didn't have far to go to Kennedy Meadows. Didn't walk up until something like 6 then did some journaling in bed with coffee then packed and soaked my feet and legs in the river then did some stretching and finally got hiking sometime between 8 and 9. Unfortunately by then it was already getting pretty warm, which was a little surprising.
The trail continued up the Kern River, and I was easily distracted by he riparian bird life. Song Sparrows, Red-winged Blackbirds, Spotted Sandpipers, Lazuli Buntings fooling me with heir song into believing they were some kind of warbler, even a hen Mallard went winging down river.
Got to Kennedy Meadows around 10:30 and was welcomed in with the traditional celebratory clapping and cheering by the crew of hikers already loitering on the porch of the very hiker friendly general store. Through the rest of the day each new hiker was treated with this same applause by the growing crowd in recognition of finishing the "desert" and making it to the Sierra. I settled in with some chips and a beer to observe and participate in he scene. The porch was built around a couple trees and also had some wooden shade awnings and a plastic thatch umbrella shading picnic tables and plastic lawn chairs. Hikers and their stuff were strewn about, in various stages of emptying trash from packs, trying to fit food in bear cans and bear cans in backpacks, and getting drunk and full of town food. Hikers who had all their clothes in the laundry were wearing whatever they could come up with: rain pants, plastic bag skirts, etc. Speakers hung along the outside wall above the porch, along with funny signs saying things like "wine: how classy people get wasted." and "Saddle yer hoss before sassin' the boss", played an entertaining mix of old country, classic rock, and late '90's-early 2000's alternative. In preparation for the coming 9-day section before the next resupply, I wanted to try and load up on calories, so I had a burger for lunch and another for dinner. I found a Tom Clancy book in the loner pile and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening with it and a few more beers. It was a jolly good time with all the hikers giddy about the coming mountains and showing exhausted, sun-baked relief at finishing the desert section, which in reality included a lot of mountains.
Finally in the evening when it was to dark to read on the porch and most hikers had drifted off to bed I wandered out behind the store past tents and sleeping bag-wrapped hikers and an assortment of old gas pumps and satellite dishes and refrigerators that had been hauled out there to rust and decay back in to the earth and found myself a little mostly flat spot under a pinyon with low hanging dead branches that I kept bumping and shattering onto my bed.
Birds:
Yellow Warbler
Black-headed Grosbeak
Western Wood-pewee
Bushtit
House Finch
Spotted Sandpiper
Red-winged Blackbird
Mourning Dove
Rock Wren
Northern Flicker
Mallard
Lazuli Bunting
Pinyon Jay
Mountain Chickadee
Killdeer
Common Raven
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