Today is a zero day at bear garden hostel!I slept well enough on my high rise bed. We both decided to put our sleeping pads on top of the bunk mattresses because they were just too hard.

In brief, our day consisted of flannel pajama pants, jimmy dean frozen breakfast sandwiches, planning planning and more planning, picture/blog uploading at drugged hamster speeds, drying out gear, wishing we were hiking in the sunshine but knowing the break was necessary, an indigo bunting sighting, and an unending supply of good company with Oakland around. She went so far as to trim sections of my hiking stick into permanent bear line sticks that we will carry with us.

Here are a handful of pictures of the day and some shots of my Old/new poles for good measure.

Right before bed We saw a thousand flashing twinkles care of the resident lightning bugs.

Mile 558.3 to mile 558.3 (0)

Checklist total miles: 567.1

Oakland total miles: 87.4

Creature feature: so many birds! Indigo bunting, robins, Carolina wren (or a house wren?), buzzards, etc. and the owners’ two goofy German shepherds