Treated like royalty...

Day 241
11-3-2006
Started: Circle Bridge in Tahoe National Forest, CA
Finished: Auburn, CA
Today's Miles: 27.5
Total Miles: 3886.4

There's nothing quite like waking up in the pitch dark, listening to the sound of pouring rain, while cars shake the bridge you are sleeping under oh so gently. Our decision to pitch our tent last night under and in between the beams that hold the Circle Bridge together actually worked out pretty well, considering we actually didn't get any wetter through the night since we were sheltered from the bridge. However, that didn't change the fact that all of the gear that became a soaking wet mess in yesterday's rainy festivities was still saturated and we had the pleasure of placing all of those wet items back onto our bodies first thing this morning. As a matter of fact, Sheri took a moment to remind Randy how very lucky he is to have a woman consider this a honeymoon, as she was literally ringing pools of water out of her socks before placing them on her bare feet and into her dripping wet shoes. Randy was sure to acknowledge his good fortune and we shared a giggle as we carefully packed up our gear. Today started out much like yesterday as far as the weather goes. Visibility was poor and the sky let loose every now and again, soaking us all the way through each time. Although the weather hasn't been particularly pleasant, we can't say it has affected our moods in any way. We still are somewhat amazed that we are actually in California now and have at least once a day said to each other, "Hey, you're in California". It's certainly hard to grasp the fact that in just a couple of weeks we won't be waking up in our tent every morning and putting on our hiking shoes and walking somewhere new, so we are living each and every minute to its fullest and enjoying every single moment that we have together out here. So, looking, moving and smelling like two drowned rats, we made our way into the town of Foresthill this morning. We had a few hiker chores we needed to accomplish in town, the most important being to recharge our camera battery that we wore out coming through the Sierra Nevada Mountains over the past few days. We decided to stop at the local grocery store to purchase something hot to drink and inquire about town services. We met a very kind woman named Linda who worked at the store. She helped us by directing us to where we needed to go while in town and even bought Sheri a cup of hot coffee. Linda was very excited to hear about our trip and even took a photo of us so she could show her children. As we made our way back outside the light drizzle that had followed us all morning had turned to a heavy downpour so we made a beeline for the local pizza restaurant called the Pizza Factory. When we opened the door to the restaurant, the chairs were still up on the table and the only people we could see looked to be having a meeting of some kind. When we asked if they were open yet, we were told to come in and make ourselves at home. The owners of the restaurant, Rose and Mike, and their friend Jeffrey, were very interested to hear about our journey. We shared a few stories with them and were then treated like family for the rest of our time at the Pizza Factory. Mike immediately told us that whatever we wanted for lunch was on him and Rose told us to spread our wet gear out so it could dry and told us to make ourselves comfortable. After placing our order, Rose came around the corner with a lap top computer in her hand and placed in on our table so we could check in with treckusa and send e-mails if we needed to. We devoured a delicious cheese and pineapple pizza while chatting with several customers in the restaurant. Mike and Rose treated us like royalty while dining in their restaurant and we can't thank them enough for taking such good care of us. With very full bellies and smiles on our faces we packed up our gear and slowly started to head out of town. Rose had arranged for us to make a stop at the local newspaper's office for a quick picture. We met Jim from The Messenger and enjoyed sharing some of our stories with him. After a quick picture we were on our way out of the very friendly town of ForestHill. We spent most of the afternoon putting on and taking off our rain gear and by early evening we actually saw our first glimpse of a small patch of blue sky. Eventually the sun peeked through the clouds and the small patch of blue sky soon became a sky full of blue. We were paid a friendly visit this afternoon by a friend of Linda's from the grocery store back in Foresthill. MountainMom, as she calls herself, stopped to tell us that she had checked out our website and was very excited to follow along with the rest of our journey. We decided to push on tonight for a couple hours after the sunset. We put our headlights on and made a push for the town of Auburn. Just before reaching town we found ourselves at the east of the famous ForestHill Bridge. The Foresthill Bridge sits over 730 feet high above the Middle Fork of the American River and is California's highest bridge. As we approached the bridge we carefully made our way across as a set of low lying clouds seemed to swallow us whole making for an eerie, very dark walk. We successfully did make it across to the other side without incident and were happy to have our feet back on solid ground. Our tired and still wet feet were definitely ready to call it a day when we reached the town of Auburn and we took full advantage of lounging around while we laid our gear out to dry. We met some great people today in California and are looking very forward to waking up tomorrow to a sky full of warm California sunshine.

Your Friends on the ADT,
Randy and Sheri
Follow our Journey at www.treckusa.com