May 13: Cajon Pass

Food has become quite the conversation piece out here on the trail lately. Calories are counted and compared. Methods for maximizing fat and protein intake are appraised, approved, and perfected. All concepts of how to maintain a nutritional and balanced diet are thrown out the window and our bodies are trained daily to sustain extraordinary physical strain on the meagrest, most defficient, dirt junk food diets imagineable.

Eliza and I fantasized all day long about the upcoming mid-day break at the McDonald's at Cajon Ppass we were headed towards. Milkshakes, large fries, re-fillable sodas, even cheeseburgers, Big Macs, Chicken McNuggets, we already tasted it all as we dropped down out of the San Bernardinos toward the heavy, loud, mass transit, commercial rumble of I-15.

We restrained ourselves pretty well, when judgment finaly arrived as we reached the front of the eggregiously long weekend highway traveler line. We each had the McVeggie Burger Extra Value Meal and a hot fudge sundae. We felt stuffed, but pleasantly so. Later on, we reconvened with some other hikers and heard tales of unbelievable, absolutely disgusting -- I daresay, criminal, caloric consumption.

Kickstep Casey, I believe, held the crown for most filthy fast food eaten there at Cajon Pass that day. He told it proudly, with a sick, and altogether too comfortable, grin stuck on his face. He had a Big Mac extra value meal, a McChicken, a six-piece Chicken McNugget, a double cheeseburger, and a hot fudge sundae at McDonalds. Then, ahem, he went across to the other side of the exit and proceeded to eat a second meal at the Del Taco restaurant -- he restrained himself with just two burritos, one steak, one super. Casey's performance at the fast food chains seems to have drawn a general, yet genuine sense of awe and admiration from our fellow followers of the trail. I guess I am impressed as well, although not in a positive way.

Eliza and I continue to simultaneously pack too much food and never have enough to eat. We have finished all of our home-dried and packaged meals and are now learning how to eat ramen at every meal. We prepare it a la carte, the classic Top Ramen style -- I can still remember my formative years, munching half cooked noodles out of a coffee cup at Monkey Run with my father, if I had only known then how valuable an education in cheap camp cooking would be to me now! -- sometimes mixed with the ubiquitous and often tasteless instant mashed potatoes, sometimes together as a savory filling for noodle-tater burritos . . .

Ah, how appetizing it must sound out there to you all on the other side of cyber world, with your full kitchens and normal dietary needs. I had secretly, yet greatly, looked forward to eating all the junk food I wanted while out on this trip. My bubble has been burst, however. I am sick of junk food already. Fritos and M&Ms, Clif Bars and Skittles, Donuts and Hot Dogs -- shit, all shit. My mouth hurts to think about it now. My body keeps going though, and my stomach will surely want it all over again come tomorrow.