Woke early in the morning, swallowed some coffee, made some oat meal and packed up.   Chatted with the folks who camped with me for a bit.   One dude is named Jukebox.   He was singing to himself most of the morning, so I guess that fits.

  
Jukebox is traveling with his sister and her German husband (Tio, or something like that).   Her trail name is Chef.   A dude named Jolly Rancher back at Warner was going on and on about some gal named Chef who made this awesome pineapple upside down cake on a camp stove.   Here she is in the flesh.   She was definitely setup for luxing the hike.   Showed me a little tennis ball sized mesh of sprouts that she was growing on the trail.    They told me they were going to do “10 or 12 miles today”.  Heh.    Everyone has their priorities.  

 
I bailed out early and hiked to the guzzler cistern.   Towonda and Quark were finishing up some filtering.  That water is just gross.   I filled my bottles, but didn’t put any of it in my bladder.   Figured if I was desperate I’d pour it in.  Fortunately, the water cache at mile 143.   (Note 5/9, found out later from Bottom that there were dead animals floating in it, ugh)   

The nasty, green Guzzler water was returned to the earth and I refilled.  

Met a German dude named Felix there.   He’s 18 from Munich doing a hike before University starts.  Super nice kid.   We left together and hiked for a couple miles, but I couldn’t keep his pace.   We kept crossing throughout the day.   He would jam out 3 or 4 miles, rest, then start again around the time I showed up.   I told him I was his pacer.   He said my precision seemed very German.  Heh.  
This section just got more and more miserable as the day went on.   No shade, +300, -300 foot climbs/decents.   Normally I would have stopped for a few hours but all I could think about was a gigantic cheeseburger that would vanish at 3.

Quark and Towonda lapped me again after their rest stop.  Kept with them for a couple miles, but Towonda’s pace was killing me.   Damn kids.   My hat was soaked with sweat most of the day.   
Made Paradise at 2ish.   I got paid with my burger and beer that I had with Quark and Towonda.   We discussed hitching to Idyllwild like everyone else, but instead convinced ourselves to walk it on a hybrid route that stopped at Lake Hemet for tonight. 

  
Saw Felix before I left.   He was sitting with a bunch of German kids.   Guess he’s found a home.
Made Lake Hemet at 8 or 9.   We picked up a stray geriatric named Jim and bought a site together.  Nice spot by the lake.   I setup just the inner bug net and collapsed.   I think we did 23 miles today.  The frogs are croaking outside my tent.   They seem pleased with my performance today.