Thursday, March 21, 2019

The wind and rain continued for hours into the night. Waking up around 2:00 AM, I performed a thorough inspection of the interior of my tent. Due to being pitched on a slight slope, the back of the tent was high and the wind was blowing rain through the mesh; rain was also being splattered against the mesh door by the shuddering of the tent flaps in the wind, and droplets were landing on my sleeping bag. A small puddle had formed in one corner but none of my gear was really wet, and considering the faulty pitch, I felt touched by the valiant job that my tent was doing in such harsh wind and rain. Hey, if other people can humanize animals, I can humanize my tent, okay? My tent protecting me from severe elements is like a movie in which a dog rescues twelve children from a burning building, then bakes a birthday cake for an orphan girl with dimples.

In the morning I checked the forecast and more rain was predicted for the afternoon, so I decided to take an on-trail rest day. I don’t need to deal with you, clouds and rain!! I’ll continue walking tomorrow in the sunshine with my beautiful views.

After lounging around for awhile, I put myself to work adjusting the pitch of my tent and patching more of the tiny holes in the roof. Sweet scruffy tent… (pets). Dillon, who I first met in Lake Morena, arrived and asked whether I had drawn water from the tank. I hadn’t tried it, but the water report said it was dry. I asked whether he was out of water, but he said that he still had a litre, so I figured he would be fine. If you run out, just turn your mouth upwards.

The weather remained cool but pleasant for the entire morning, then disintegrated into rain and hail around 2:30 PM. Stay dry out there everyone, she said with obnoxious smugness from the interior of her tent. I became much less smug once it had been pouring for three hours, I needed to pee and I could see puddles forming beneath the floor. I’ve been checking the forecasts for Julian and Mount Laguna but neither is accurate for my location, which is like some bizarro high-precipitation zone.