Robert Francisco

Destination: Highway 140
Starting Location: Hyatt Lake Today’s
Miles: 30.40
Trip Miles: 1781.70
Hyatt Lake (1750.2, 5090) to Highway 140 (1780.6, 4984) ascent (3835) descent (3901)

I used to have a , albeit pathetic, hiker beard. Then Sunny asked me to blow out Tadpole the hippo’s alcohol stove. Now I have some sort of reverse goatee.
The guide book suggests that no one would choose to hike section B of Oregon because it is uninteresting. Bull. What a great trail through a second growth forest and across jumbled lava fields. The walking was easy & the miles pass easily.
Shooter, who is filming a documentary, was at highway 140 when we arrived. He was looking for Rainskirt (Inaki) who was with us. He is going to follow us in the morning and film our friend from Spain. He joined us in camp but not before running Thunder to the country store for soda, beer & chips. Surprise soda tastes so good on the trail.
Lucky Liz & I own a beautiful piece of property in Mt Shasta City. I have been indecisive regarding building a home there because I was nervous about the crazy land appreciation and how much equity we would tie up. Lucky, like always, has been steady in her resolve that we should build our home on this piece of property. This trip has convinced me of the same thing and now that the fear is gone I am wildly excited. So for about a week I have been designing a home in my head. Then I got smart and got the team working on it. Four heads are better than one, and Sunny in particular has a lot of experience. We have been working on this project for two straight days. Hours of brainstorming & even more hours putting the good ideas together into a comprehensive home. We hope to be able to afford a log house and that is what we are designing but it could be modified to accommodate conventional stick framing if needed. Our criteria has included everything from energy efficiency to snow loading requirements, and our design is totally cool & extremely simple. I can see this home & hope we live in it one day soon.
More bee stings today but fortunately I was spared. My sting from yesterday itches like crazy & Sunny has the same thing going on. My foot is about the same but a cocktail of vitamin I and Aleeve kept me walking 12 hours & 30 miles. Same plan for tomorrow.

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