Photo: Amargosa River Trail

Next morning we headed up to Shoshone where we had a reservation at the RV park there. We stopped first in Tecopah to go to the Kit Fox Café. They were closed until later that day as they were preparing for an event. Turns out they were hosting a Reggae Festival, so we got tickets. They were having Caribbean style food.

It was a fun time, but so hot, in the 90s again. The crowd was very thin and we felt sorry for the musicians. I missed the first act to go up to Shoshone to check into the RV Park. Yeti said the musician was really good and that he danced the whole time.

I have to say most of the afternoon acts were not so great. The headliner wasn’t going to play until 7pm. More people did start arriving as the sun started to go down. We wanted to wait but got so tired and bored by the group up on the stage that we left before 7. Oh well.

March 22 is my birthday, and I was hiking from Tecopah along the Amargosa River Trail to the trail that would lead up to the China Ranch Date Farm. My reward was a date milkshake. Yeti and I had hiked this trail almost to that spot two years ago. The river is one of the protected Wild Rivers and the surroundings are beautiful. The trail is rough. It goes through the very brushy river corridor, so it’s a tough one to keep open. In many places, you are crawling under willow boughs. Sometimes you hike on railroad grade – until the track collapses and you have to detour around that. The hike up to the China Ranch is not too steep. When I got there I see Yeti dancing…a few guys were playing music and one of the reggae musicians from the festival is singing! Yeti always says that music follows him around.

I got my coffee date milkshake and it was delicious.

Yeti had been feeling not so great even the day before with coughing and runny nose, and it seemed to get worse. He had a fever, so that afternoon we decided to leave and go back to Twentynine Palms to seek medical care.

Next morning we went to the ER at the small local hospital and he was diagnosed with Covid! We hadn’t thought of that. I probably should have marched in and asked to be tested too. I was not showing symptoms but by evening I started feeling lousy. So, back to the ER next morning and of course I had Covid too. We are both on Paxlovid and feeling better.

Our plan is to meet up with Jac next week to trail angel her through California so she won’t have to set caches. Tomorrow we’ll leave here and go stay in Borrego Springs until Jac starts. I hope to do more hiking with Yeti and maybe do a section backpacking…we’ll see.