We slept last night at the American Legion on their patio and honestly had a great sleep.

But waking today with no access to bathrooms and no easy access to coffee was harsh.

Hint: there are public bathroom outside the Julian town hall that open at 9am but the porta potty there is unlocked.

Natasha stayed with our gear and got it laid out and I took the kids to the only open coffee shop. Which was a bit of a walk. And ended up with a closed kitchen. And the bathroom was outside the building (where Toothless had to go on his own while I watched his sister. I also had to change her diaper in the bathroom alone with no change table).

I had a coffee. Toothless had steamed milk. We both had a yogurt parfait. Lil Flier wasn’t a fan of the blueberries. I think they were too sour.

We met Natasha again. Then went to check on getting a real breakfast. The cafe we went to wouldn’t have gluten free pie ready until lunch so Natasha went to moms for a free slice and Toothless and I went to the store to look for snacks and his “camping undies” (aka pull ups).

We went back to the Legion then dried and repaired gear. I fixed my shorts. Natasha replaced the zipper slider (and did a damn good job on it. It works now!). We did diaper and clothes laundry. Dealt with trash. Filled out water bottles. Natasha and Toothless got food for the hike while I packed the bags.

We went to the cafe (Apple Alley) for a whole apple pie for lunch and sandwiches to bring on for our dinner. They do gluten free and they did it well. The owner was very generous and comped our sandwiches and drinks and talked to us a lot. Her son (who also works there) had attempted the PCT twice. We talked a tonne. It was very cool. They were so helpful and kind.

We got a ride back to trail at 2pm by a trail angel and got started after an awkward application of sun screen in the wind.

The 4 or so miles was cooler than yesterday. My thermometer says low 30s – maybe 32 deg C. But the wind kept us cool.

The vegetation is finally starting to change a bit. We are seeing large cactus and different plants. Some really tall ones. It’s neat!

Toothless learned to use the new sun umbrella. He had no idea to hold the umbrella between the sun and himself. I guess it wasn’t intuitive. He’s used to umbrellas for rain.

We got a site. Set up the tent. It’s windy and the site is hard packed so the pegs won’t go in so I’m using boulders. The pitch isn’t amazing but will hopefully hold up.

Toothless completely melted down and we had to do some exhausted parenting but after he ate he was much more relaxed.

We ate those amazing sandwiches, chips, pickles. We had some raspberry lemonade nuun.

I did stories for Toothless and we crashed.