Paul, Roi, and I took a zero in Wrightwood. I enjoyed waking up late (6:30 AM) and having a quiet breakfast with Creature and Paul. Creature is the nicest tattooed guy from L.A. I've ever met. Six pieces of thick wheat toast with homemade jam, two poached eggs, and three cups of coffee stood in for breakfast.

Sometime around 10:30 AM, Paul, Roi, and I, now joined by Sage and Orange, were in the middle stages of starvation. We stumbled a mile and a half back into town from Leroy's place to The Evergreen Café, like reformed zombies in search of high calorie breakfast food. I ordered the Full Stack Flap Jacks. It was a mountain of pancakes topped by strawberries, real whipped cream, and real maple syrup. When I say mountain of pancakes, I mean a mountain. It seemed insurmountable for a mere mortal, er, non-hiker. Roi couldn't finish them. Sage barely got through them. I was done in less than ten minutes and now peeking through the desert menu. I ordered the brownie and hot fudge sundae, which was a massive brownie with a glacial slab of vanilla ice cream on top, surrounded by steaming hot fudge. I went through that too in less than ten minutes.

An hour after that, we all drifted back to Leroy's place and I was peeking through the local pizza shop menu. That evening I ate an entire pizza and nearly a whole calzone.

Hiker hunger has finally hit me. Hard. Real hard. I'm apparently the first in my group to be afflicted with it and those who haven't yet developed it are just astonished how much I can put down in a single sitting and still walk away. They'll all get it eventually. Should be pretty funny to see what they end up craving the most. Orange pop seems to be a favorite of mine, along with...anything else.

Town visits just got a lot more interesting.