Day 2. Storm Zero

12/16/16

Distance Hiked: 0 miles

Taking a zero today due to the insane sandstorms and heavy rain. Conditions are suppose to improve by tomorrow morning. For the sake of time and not having to find a way back out to a random part of a wash I’ll have to just miss those 15 miles from the sandstorm to Borrego Springs. 

Coughee and me go to the nearby Arches restaurant for breakfast and I eat some big pancakes. 5 other diners are at a table near us and asks if we’re the two guys who got caught in the sandstorm last night. Yep. The lady at the front desk supposedly told of our struggle. We chatted with them for a bit while looking out on the golf course you could see the sandstorm still raging in the desert. 

There are grapefruit trees planted all over, filled with fruit so I grab one to eat. As soon as I bite into it, my tongue goes numb. Coughee tries some too and his tongue goes numb. We think pesticide on the outside of the fruit maybe did this, since we had no knife to cut it, we just bit into it. The effect lasted many hours. Wont try that again. 

As we’re just laying around with nothing to do all day Coughee makes the decision to go home because he is moving to a new house with Sherrie in a few weeks and he feels bad that she’s doing all the packing. I’m sad that he’s leaving but he’s just being responsible. His friends are coming to pick him up and take me to resupply. We lose power in the hotel for about 30 minutes. Wind must have blown some power lines down. When Shane and Moose arrive, we head to buy some food at the grocery store when we find out the whole town is still out of power. The grocery store says they can’t sell us anything and we go to the liquor store instead because it’s the only place that’s open. They had enough snacks for me to resupply a few days. We get back to the hotel and I say bye to Coughee and his friends. Power is out at the hotel again for a few hours, it comes back on and I pass out by 8 pm.