CDT Kickoff

I wanted to make it down to the kickoff in silver city by 11 am for a lecture on navigating with a GPS. Unfortunately we underestimated the tone it would take to drive there. We thought it would be about a 3 hour drive but it ended up taking us over 4 hours. There wasn't any traffic to speak of we just didn't realize how far it was. Nectar isn't much of a morning person so she let me drive which was a good idea since the road was very winding and curving and I would have been so car sick.

When we got to silver city the kickoff was in full swing with booths, presentations, and hiker trash everywhere. It was great. Until we got there I felt a bad about talking nectar into coming down since she had to drive back to albuquerque by 10am the next morning, but once we got there she was having such a great time being back in her trail hiking element that I was actually glad I got her to come. She seemed to be having a great time and got a first hand reminder on why she's working her cubicle job.

We only went to the last presentation which was a question and answer session with some experienced hikers which turned out to be an hour and half long story time. After that was when the real party started. They had blocked off a block outside the local brewery and had a band playing. It was great there were people dancing in the street. Unfortunately nectar had to leave at 5 since she didn't want to drive that crazy road after dark so we bailed then. I went to my hotel room and got cleaned up and organized before heading back to the party. I met a few other hikers but there was only one couple, M80 and Trooper, I had sorta meet before in the PCT. We were hiking in the same bubble on the PCT but they had to do a lot of night hiking due to having their dog with them. Pepa, aka buzzard bait the guy I helped in the first day of the PCT, had hiked a lot with them and thought we'd get along. They are about 2 weeks ahead of me since they are already up at silver city but they tend to go a bit slower in the desert to accommodate the dog so I'll probably catch up to them. I didn't know any of the other hikers but fixed myself to be social and introduced myself to as many as I could. I'm not sure if I'll see many of then in trail since they were almost exclusively the young, fit, and fast varieties but there are many miles to Canada and anything can happen.