I managed to get to the Metrolink Station to catch the last bus towards Cabazon. From the Morongo Casino I walked back to the PCT and what I hoped would be a warmer stretch of trail.
Only it was so late and I was limping from a few newly formed blisters that I didn’t exactly make it back to the trail.
I crossed I-10 to walk the Alternate road and a Sheriff’s car rolls by, well below the speed limit, to check me out. My blisters have me limping and I may as well been a drifter but he kept going. Even after the sun had set it remained bright enough out that
when no one is on the road in either direction I jump behind some creosote bushes and call it a night. Only the trains can see from the tracks but I try to put a few tumbleweeds between us to disguise my position.
Warmest night yet, but the windmills constantly jolt me awake. I catch the movement of the fan blades and think that someone is creeping up on my position.
I sleep until just before 5am and while I’m rerunning a dream in my head someone drives by real slow with a spotlight trained in the bushes.
Police? Or hunters? Did the train people spot me and call it in?
I pack and hike out as soon as possible and realize that I’d been less than a mile from where the PCT crosses under I-10.
To the north was a fire closure.
Besides, I was trying to get warmer… so south was the better option.