Day 4, 9-2-10: Lake Elsinore to North of Perris, CA

At the onset, this appeared to be a reasonably easy walking day. Good roads, not too far, and a bright, sunny, day. But for some reason, which I still can't figure out, everything went kinda dysfunctional. Although the road was wide and had good shoulders, it was just recently / still being paved. The tarmac (sorry, I mean pavement...I'm starting to get an accent) was so black and absorbing so much heat, it was slowly sucking the energy out of us. And then the day got hotter, over 100, and there was some humidity as well. By the time we reached a convenience store south of Perris, both of us were very tired.

After resting and refreshing at the store, I asked a beer truck driver directions to the place we planned to stay. In fact, asked him about 3 times, and finally thought I had it. We walked on to Perris and stopped at a burger place for lunch. Perris has a pretty, small, downtown. While waiting for our order, a woman walked over to us, introduced herself as MJ Heggeness, and talked for a while about our walk. Then as she turned to leave, wished us the best, handed us $10, and told us to buy some drinks or something. What can I say? It's not even unusual anymore for this to happen.

We got our burgers, and turned RIGHT on a street heading out of town. Walked about a mile in awful heat, and finally figured we should have turned left. So back in the other direction....but, before starting back, I saw a young man selling watermelons in his yard so walked over and bought one. We stopped one more time at a police station to ask directions, and headed on to the camping spot, Camper Resorts of America, on Ramona Expressway.

When we got there, I was totally out of it. Overheated, dehydrated, and bone tired......could not take another step. I am 99% certain if my vitals were checked, I would have soon been in an emergency room with needles in my arm. After locating the person, we were told that they don't allow tents. But, thank heavens she felt sorry for two pretty grungy looking guys. Crystal said she could not send us on our way, so called the manager of the park, Mike Weir, and he agree to allow the tents for the nite......thanks Crystal. As we were heading to the site chosen, Crystal drove up in a cart and said Mike called back and told her to put us in a cabin......air conditioning, showers, bathroom, fridge, beds(!), etc. Oh, and by the way, free of charge! I could hardly walk another step, so got into the cart with Crystal and header to the cabin. Soon, Crystal and her friend Joyce came back with towels, water, ice, plates and utensils, for us to use.

Well, I was still a little out of it, but told you in the first post on this blog that I was going to use common sense to get thru this walk. So, how to fix the dehydration and overheating? Oh yea, there's that watermelon. Did y'all know that one of the best ways to get hydrated (no official data to support this) is to eat watermelon? Before long I had my face buried in that watermelon sucking all the good tasting water out of it. Now the overheating. Crystal had given us a key to the pool. Before long I was in that cool water and my body temp was dropping. And not too long after that, we were sitting in a cool cabin eating pizza that Alan went to get. That boy can put away some food! Shortly after that, sound asleep on a nice bed.

Yea, we made a few mistakes today, but I'm sitting here writing about it. Sometimes we learn the hard way and this will better prepare us for the days ahead. Hope all are doing well, and keep following.