Day 118: 0 Day in Ashland

Date: 03.08.2018 Miles hiked today: 0 miles Total Mileage: Mile 1'718.7 Juhui we decided to make a 0 Day here in Ashland! I'm so happy, happy, happy, happy! Ashland is fantastic. The little town centre is really cute, loads of nice bars, restaurants, shops and coffees. The only negative thing i can think of is that payable hotels are all located 1 to 2 miles away the centre (there is a really nice Hotel right in the centre but 2'000 USD per night is a little much!) and the laundromat (only one exists) is also located out of the centre. However, we are not staying in this hotel one more night. That means we have to check out and can't keep lying in our beds. But Dirty Money is leaving us today and we can share a room with three other hikers to save some money. The hotel however is even further out of town than ours was. Also, we have to organise our resupply for the next strech and also for Oregon, as it seems quite hard to do so while hiking through Oregon. Therefore, we plan to send a box ahead. We check out and walk the mile to the next supermarket, where we resupply and buy food which we want to send ahead. That's quite a lot of food and the bags are very heavy! We have to walk back to our hotel, about 1 mile, get our backpacks which we left at the reception and walk one more mile to the other hotel. My arms nearly fell off, my bags and all my gear was so heavy! I also had to buy new water bottles, which is about the heaviest thing to carry (3.7 liters). In the hotel, we are 6 people sharing one room! I first organised my resupply box. While checking where to send it to best I noticed that Oregon is not hard at all to resupply as you go. There are enough towns and resorts along our route to easily resupply. It may be a little more expensive and not that many choices but that will do. So we decided to send the box to the boarder of Oregon and Washington and then bounce it forward. In Washington it will be much harder to resupply properly. Once thats sorted I went back to bed just to relax and nap a little. At 4pm we left the hotel and headed towards centre to send our resupply boxes and to get some food, drinks and gear we need. Luckily, there is a bus stop in front of our hotel and we didn't wait any longer for 5 minutes for it to come! Perfect, I didn't wanna walk this 2.5 miles to the centre anymore! First we went to the post office, then to an outdoor outfitter. I walked in the store and before I could even look at any item the owner came and asked me about my pants! They want to add them to their store, but don't know how exactly they are called and hence couldn't find them. If I happen to know? Where did I buy them? Which size did i get? Are they comfortable? Would I recommend them? Etc. Wow I wasn't aware that my pants are that fancy! I have no clue how they are called, but I'm very happy with them and yes would recommend them. I check on Google and could give them all the details they need. I don't know why they didn't try it with Google?!. But always happy to help! :) we are getting hungry but there are so many delicious restaurants, which one to choose? It takes us a while to finally agree on Sushi, mmmh! Food was delicious and just when we are about to pay Sparkles joins us! She also decided to stay for another night, I tried to convince her all day :) music can be heard all over the town. A girl playing the fiddle, a band playing live in a shop store, bands playing live at bars, it's such a cool place. Full of young people too, cause there's a university here. We end up at Gil's, apparently the place to be, where there is a live band playing. It's a warm summer night and everything happens outside. You can get beers or cider and enjoy. We can't spot any other hikers here (I assume because of the hotels being quite far from town that most of them don't even come here! What a mistake!). We are talking to the locals who inform us that every first Friday in a month there are bands playing, and it's a special night. It's so cool I feel like a real tourist on vacation! The band stops playing at 9pm, where Maria decides to leave and head back but Apachi and Helther are joining us to the next bar where there is also a live band. We stay there, have some drinks and dance till this bars closes too at 2am. I must confess that I was a tiny little bit drunk at that time so i didnt wanna go home yet! But Duchess and Parmesan ordered a taxi and just seated me in there too. I guess it was a good part at this time for me too! So we headed back to the hotel and i felt asleep with all my clothes still on! :)