Today I took a short day into Tehachapi. My pack was super light, almost empty and my legs were feeling so fresh. I only had 8.8 miles,14.2 km to get to the road and hitch into town. Once in town I had all afternoon to relax before checking in to a hotel for a couple of nights.

I woke up before dawn, and packed away my gear. An early night last night helped me get moving early and I was on the trail at 7:30 am. The trail crossed through another windfarm, and once again wind turbines filled the landscape.

For most of the morning the trail was flat, or gently descending. I made good time through the windfarm and soon I could see the road a couple of miles ahead. When I got to the road, it was only about 5 minutes before someone pulled over to take me and one other hiker to town.

When we got to town, my driver spent an extra 10 minutes to drive around and show me all the spots. We went past a well known German bakery, the town’s Walmart, the local outdoors shop, a Mexican restaurant and a Chinese buffet. After the tour I got dropped off in the middle of town. For the first time, I was arriving in town feeling like I had a pretty good handle on the place.

My first stop was the German bakery, they make sandwiches to order on homemade breads. They also have a huge cabinet full of cookies, pastries, and sweet treats. I grabbed a roast beef sandwich with all the trimmings, a chocolate chunk cookie and a chocolate custard eclair, with unlimited coffee refills.

At the bakery I bumped into Ninja, Fortune Cookie and Star again, the three other hikers I’ve been with since Wrightwood. Ninja had managed to get us a room in a hotel on the cheap. We all checked in for $20 each per night.

We settled in, got some laundry going and headed to the burger joint just down the road. The burgers were pretty good, but really what we were saving ourselves for is the famed Chinese buffet tomorrow night. It was great to finally get good town food, a proper shower, and sleep in a real bed knowing that tomorrow is going to be a zero mile day.