Day 94 (23 August)

Miles 0. Ashland / Callahan's Lodge 

Well, that was not the best night‘s sleep ever. We both feel even worse in the morning and the disappointing breakfast in the motel isn‘t helping. We didn‘t get around to doing our laundry yesterday, so we‘ve still got to do that now. We blog while we wait for the laundry at the laundromat. We are so not excited to get back on trail, but we also can‘t afford to spend another night in a hotel, timewise and budgetwise. I really hope the energy and motivation will come back. Right now this feels too much like work. And we haven‘t mentioned it yet, but there is also heavy smoke in and around Ashland, so we can‘t even see the beauty out here. Is it supposed to be this hard? Is it gonna get better again? Is it worth pushing through? Or okay to give up and travel to South America already? What should we do? We have doubts. One day I feel like giving up, the next day Dario wants to leave. And nobody can help us make a decision. We have to decide for ourselves. So for now our ego wins, we will keep going. 

Back at the hotel we pack up and then leave by another cab to go to the Post Office with our four boxes for Oregon. We meet BigBro there and he wait for us while we actually need to repack our boxes on the ground of the post office which is part of a supermarket. Finally that‘s done too and we decide to go for lunch. Sushi, yay! It‘s delicious. Now we are ready to leave town and head back out to the trail, when we realize that we forgot our trekking poles at the hotel! This is so frustrating! It‘s gonna take us another half an hour now to get back here. I am crying out of frustration now. This is supposed to be a holiday! A positive thing! It‘s just too hard! 

40 minutes later we are back in the same spot, with our trekking poles, ready to hitch. Waiting and waiting for a car to stop. I don‘t like hitching. Being dependant on other people. Feeling exposed and needy. Just when we are about to give up and ask for a room at the motel across the street, a truck finally pulls over and offers to take us back to Callahan‘s Lodge. Perfect! Finally some luck. It turns out that Jennifer, our driver and savior, is the manager of the lodge. We have a nice chat and she reminds us of the free beer that we can get at the bar of the lodge.

We decide to go for it. And see Flamin‘ Hot again sitting at the bar enjoying his beer(s). Callahan‘s Lodge is absolutely beautiful. It‘s very traditional yet beautifully remodeled and very cozy. They have a special accommodation deal for hikers, and purely out of interest we ask to see one of the rooms. It‘s got a hot tub and a fire place. It‘s incredibly cozy. And could be ours for 120$. And that‘s when we decide we‘re not ready to go back on trail. We desperately need some rest. Maybe get our motivation and energy back with a treat like that. We decide to spend the night. All our chores done we can actually completely enjoy the evening. We watch dull US television from inside the hot tub. We read in the most comfy bed while the sun is going down. We then go down to the restaurant for a special PCT spaghetti à discretion dinner and have a glass of CabSav each. And life is suddenly so much better again.