After the Andersons', water and shade evaporate for awhile on the trail. Walking away from Green Valley, heat and wind began to pick up nearly immediately. Far Out and I, fairly early in the day, made our way to Hikertown, a collection of hastily-constructed wild west facades. It serves as a final hydration outpost before a long walk along the covered California aqueduct. We ate lunch and decided to move on. With a high temperature of only 88, it seemed like a good idea to capitalize on this last cool, windy day.
Nothing but dirt roads for the rest of the day. Dirt roads along large horse property boundaries, dirt roads along the couple of miles of open aqueduct, dirt roads along the endless concrete serpent of covered aqueduct, dirt roads into the great Mojave labyrinth of wind turbines. We walked mostly in silence. Our feet hurt from the hardpack. A pair of other hikers caught up to us, each sharing half of the generic sodas they'd yogi-ed from some folks in an impromptu trailer community across the aqueduct. I know how hard it must have been to drink only half of that cold caloric manna. Amazing willpower on their part.
We walked on into the darkness. I spotted the first scorpion right next to Far Out's foot. There were many more, all large yellow models. We played with them in the night. When we finally camped in a wash, we willed them to keep their distance.