After six days in the woods, we made it to a small town called Sierra City. And I mean small. Population 200 kind of small. We were ready for some coffee and waffles (and by ready, I mean we had only been talking about them for the past 2 days), but were informed as we walked into the town that the power was out. Now, keep in mind, Sierra City is the kind of small town that, without power, just doesn't open. This was not good news for hungry hikers.
But as we walked into the downtown area which consisted of a church, a general store, and a bar, we were greeeted by the bar owner out in the street cooking up some bacon egg cheeseburgers for breakfast for the hikers. It was the only food in town, and he had a cooler of Arnold Palmer for the taking. So, we forgot our dreams of waffles, and were stoked to get a good meal. As were the other 15 or so hikers that had strolled into the town that morning.
The general store across the street was unable to open until the power went back on, but the owners were already thinking about the loss of all of their refrigerated food: the ice cream in particular. Once they passed the limit where they could no longer legally sell the ice cream, they called up all the hikers, told us to bring our spoons, and rolled out cart-fulls of half gallons of ice cream. Each hiker got his or her own, and we tucked in. As you can imagine, this was a seriously joyful moment.
And now, here's some updates for the photo gallery!