This morning when I woke up one of the first things I remembered was that I had a 14.5 oz can of salmon to mix in with my breakfast. Awesome! I hopped out of the tent before 7 I think and got my Annie's Shells and Cheese cooking up on one of the picnic tables. Adding that much salmon made it more Salmon and some shells. Mmmmmmm. So good.

I even got a nice shower there and tossed out some of my used and abused clothes. I seem to be a day ahead of my revised schedule and clean to boot. That's great! I bought another 2 Mt Dews and chatted with the ladies for awhile about my experiences on this trip. They were fascinated. I think it was close to 11 before I started up the road for the first 5.5 miles to the trailhead.

The day was a scorcher. I took an early break at the TH and rested in the shade under some pines. At 2 pm I got on the trail. It begins at 7,750 ft on the vally bottom and I was baking. The sweat was pouring off of me and I reminisced about the morning's shower. At some point I accidentally got off the Cow Creek trail and took a right onto the Coal Creek Trail. I think I know where it happened. There was some badly eroded trail and I stopped to wonder if I had gotten onto a streambed. Then I looked behind me and saw a trail leaving to the right. I bet the "streambed" was indeed the trail and wonder if I hadn't been staring at the ground maybe I would have seen a trail junction sight. Anyway the Coal Creek Trail joins back up with Cow Creek so no sense in going back down when I discovered my mistake. I did stop early at Rock Spring though because it is the last water for some time.

I'm happy to see some bats coming out to eat these pesky insects!