Day 120: ⛺@ mile 1'720.9 - ⛺@ mile 1'750.3

Date: 05.08.2018 Miles hiked today: 29.4 Miles / 47.31km Total Mileage: Mile 1'750.3 We agreed to get up early last night in order to hike 30+ miles today. The sun rises later every day and it's still dark by 5:30am, which makes it harder to get up! My first alarm usually starts at 5:00am, the second one at 5:15am and the last one at 5:30am. I usually get up between the second and the third alarm so I'm ready to hike around 6am. Today I was ready at 5:50am, as I didn't eat any breakfast yet. I do like to hike a little and then make a break for breakfast, which is also my plan for today. This morning at 5:00am one hiker already passed us but I haven't seen any other hikers yet. After about 3 miles I hear some strange noise, right next to the trail. Something seems to be unhappy that I'm passing by, making some grunting noise. I can't see the animal but it must be something bigger. I can see the bushes shaking as it walks away and it's for sure not a deer. So I'm assuming that I run into a bear, who knows! But I'm glad it moved away :) a little later I stopp for my breakfast, looking at the red sun. The smoke seems to have returned. I could also smell the burned taste this morning for the first time. Oregon really seems to have flattened out. There are little tiny uphills but nothing in comparison to California. At least not so far. This is also why it says that in Oregon 30 mile hiking days are possible without struggeling too much. Let's see! As for the moment, I feel as if miles and time don't pass by. I'm not in my best mood, but don't really know why. I had some wonderful days in Ashland. The day after a town however sometimes sucks. Until you find back to your hiking rhythm. In addition, I'm a bit angry with myself that I didn't hike on yesterday and did a couple of more miles rather than the 2 miles we did! But I can't change this now! And it felt great yesterday! At the water source also Parmesan and Duchess arrive a little later. This is the last water for a 13 mile strech. Parmesan suggest to hike this 13 miles and stop there for lunch. We would then have hiked 20 miles already. But it's already 9:00am and 13 miles takes us a little more than 4 hours usually. I will just hike and see how far I get, and as I'm the first one to leave I can also suggest to break earlier :) it's already 12:20 and its still 3.6 miles to go to that next water source but I don't want to walk more than 1 hour more before stopping for lunch. So I break assuming that Parmesan and Duchess soon will catch up. I eat and thereafter nap for 30 minutes but they both didn't turn up yet. They must have stopped earlier too! So after more than 1.5hrs of lunch break I move on again. About 2 miles in I realize that I've left my water bottle at the lunch stop. It was empty but I still need it to carry enough water, my capacity currently is 3.7 liters. As I have phone service I text Duchess to please check and pick up my empty water bottle. Soon later I receive a message that they have skipped some trail miles by taking a shortcut on a dirt road! They are now ahead of me! These cheeky hikers! I'm too lazy to hike 2 miles back to get the bottle. I'm sure I can buy a new one in a couple of days. I rather catch up with these two cheaters, skipping about 2.5 miles :) well at least they hiked it and didn't hitch it by car. I arrive there in less than 30 minutes and together we move on. My plan to hike 30+ miles shall not be successfully implemented today, but 29.4 miles is still respectable. May tomorrow we can do some more but seriously I think today I couldn't have hiked any longer. My feet and knees are hurting, I'm rather slow and not much motivated all day long. Not sure about tomorrow either as two big climbs are coming up. But at least We are moving in the right direction and eventually shall reach Canada:) btw: in the last couple of days or week we have heard from many many people leaving the trail or skipping big sections. People are leaving the trail I've never thought of, it's kind of crazy! Also, it's currently hard to find a hiker who hasn't skipped a bigger section yet. There are many reasons out there why to skip. The most common one is because of the smoke and unhealthy air... My group and a small number of hikers are kind of unique out here at the moment. Also, suddendly you meet other hikers you have last seen early in the desert or so because of skipping. I still don't want to skip sections, I want to walk it all if it is possible, unless it is closed by the pcta due to a wildfire or other dangers. But may then I could also figure out an alternative route. Keep on rockin'. 

Close from here I've heard the animal if which I believe it was a bear. But the picture should show the red sun, which was muuuuch more beautiful in real live.