7/4 Independence to Onion valley trailhead

[Aaron Doss]

we woke up because zack was "packing" his pack for the parade. it was
9 am and we would gather at 9:30. aaron and i got up, pacled our packs
light, and grabbed some breakfast served by the motel. we gathered in
a little street behind main street where about 30 hikers were standing
around a big banner that had the pct route on it and a quote:
"independence; this is what it is all about. PCT hikers 2006" every
hiker had a sign that said where they were from (i put Holland because
everyone thought that was cool). the parade existed out of about 13
entries, mostly pretty low key. one family had dressed up their old
jeep, another old jeep carried 3 WWII veterans, some girl scout group,
an old 1950 Chevrolet, etc, no big deal. there was one group that made
a pirate ship as a parade vehicle. at 10:00 the show started. there
were quite a few people on the side of the road that were waving and
cheering, exactly it was a blast, as simple as it was. non of us ever
participated in a parade and here we were: hiking in a parade while on
the PCT, people cheering us on. when we came to center, we were
officially announced as if we were in Macy's new years parade, or
something. anyways; the street was about 4 blocks long so we got to
turn around and do it all again! yippy! this time around there were
some kids (and one grown up man) were getting us with water balloons,
thinking we were without ammunition ... wrong. i filled my water
bottles on the side of of my pack because it was hot. so i very calmly
walked over to the bad boys, like i was up to nothing. and then ...
beng, one liter of water right over the heads! you could see by their
reactions that they were very surprised ... good, hahaha. the people
around them were cheering loud. that was sweet revenge, with lots of
fun, both sides. at the end of the parade we found out we actually won
the Judge's Price! how cool! we received a framed certificate and a
very beautiful woven quilt in the shape of the America an flag. it was
pretty. the organizers, Mountain Tripper and Red Neck received the
price and then handed it over to the Saufley's, to use or hang in
Hiker's Haven. everyone signed the banner and that was also given to
the Saufley's. hopefully this will be a new PCT tradition.
after this event we went back to our room, showered and quickly packed
our packs for reals. i called my best friend Sandra, who is pregnant
with her second child. i miss her often and it was good to hear
everything was okay. her first child, Christyne, is growing up so
fast, she is almost 3 in October. i haven't seen her often but she is
dear to my heart and it's always a delight to hear her on the phone.
she was asleep now, though. i couldn't talk too long but it was fun.
hopefully our jobs (what ever job it will be) will be okay with it if
we take off to Holland for 2,5 weeks for x-mas. i look forward to go.
the rest for the day we hung out on the porch of the winnadumah hotel
with the Saufley's and other hikers, and basically did nothing except
walking to the Subway (sandwich store) to get a big sandwich. at one
point zack (who else) started to just do his parade wave to all by
passing traffic, especially trucks, and he tried to get them to blow
their trucker's horn. Aaron soon joined them and they had quite a good
time being silly for a few hours, and lots of trucker's honked their
horn.
i got the ithchies a bit. after sitting hours on the porch, a felt
like either productive or get a room again. we were going back to
trail late that afternoon and i my opinion it WAS late enough (4:30).
i was ready and done and i was going to fix us a ride.
gnome sherpa and oatmeal stout (a couple) actually had access to a car
and were going back to the trail too that evening. 2 days previously
they met a previous PCT hiker on the trail who offered them his car
...
as long as they brought it back by Wednesday. can you imagine that?
you meet someone on the trail, the only thing you know about each
other is you trail names and that you are part of the same culture;
the PCT nationality. and then you get to use someone's car!
unbelievable. anyways, we got a ride back up with them so that was
cool. at 6 pm we finally went up, together with Dirty. we were just up
the road up to trail (a very desolated, quiet road) when we got pulled
over by a cop. well, we were kind of like: oh shit! first of all: we
were sitting unseatbelted with 4 people in the back seat. second of
all: what were we going to tell the cop? "no it's not our car. uuuuhm,
the name of the owner is Lucky. no, that's the only name we know, he
is a PCT'er, you know. uuuhm, we are all hiking to Canada." that's all
normal to us, but try to explain this to a cop who has never heard of
the PCT. so when the officer pulled us over we were all dead silence,
holding our breath. Gnome Sherpa s!
howed his driver's license (i am sure he has a different name on it
(-: ) and the officer asked him if it was his car. he said "no" and
told him it was friend's car. uhoooh, we held our breath and waited
for the question; what's you friend's name? but the cop surprised us.
he told Gnome that his wheels were wider than the car body and in the
state of California you need mudflaps for that (the car was from
Arizona). WHAAAAT??!! what kind of b.s. is that? soon we understood
when the cop asked:" sir, did you drink?" "no, officer." " can i do a
few small tests?" " sure, officer." blah blah blah." okay, sir, you
are fine to drive, have a great hike, sir. at days like this i pull
lots of people over to check for drunk driving". "okay, officer. thank
you." zooooooof, and on the road we were again. so, in the USA, a cop
can not just pull you over to take a breath test, unlike in Holland.
you can only be pulled over for a obvious reason. so he came up with
some really silly thing to!
proceed with the alcohol test. he never cared at all for all the othe
r things we were obvious not save for either. everybody thought it was
kind of dumb. i do think, however, that a cop should be able to pull
you over just to test for alcohol. i think drunk driving is incredibly
stupid and dangerous and if you have nothing to hide, why would you
mind a cop who is taking care of our safety? too bad that he had to
use the silly mudflap thing.

gnome Sherpa got his name because he once "stole" a garden gnome from
someone's yard. he still has his face, like a mask, almost that size.
it is about 2 pounds and he carries it every where where he travels.
he takes pictures of the places with the gnome and then sends it to
the previous owners. i remember something like that in the French
movie "aimee" but he said he did this long before the movie came out.
pretty funny. we made it to the trail head and walked about 1 mile up
so we would have a running start tomorrow morning. It was back to us
three again: Zack, Aaron and i. Los tree amigos! ready for the next
stretch of the Sierra's with it's creeks to ford, passes to conquer,
snow to traverse and mosquitos to kill. Aaron prepared by eating most
of the focossia and a bagel. i warned him that it had to last for a
while ... you never know how it goes in the Sierra's...but that's for
later.

aaron and napalie