Today was pre-hike logistics day. One of the unfortunate realities of thru-hiking is that nobody is going to organise the resupply aspect for you. So today involved organising our mail drops and first few days of supplies.

The day started off with an Uber ride to Berkeley to pick up last minute supplies from REI. Our driver on the way there was a South African called Juan (for some reason pronounced Dew-Ann). I didn’t have the heart to tell him he had been pronouncing his name wrong all these years.

Dew-Ann was, in his own words, a highly successful businessman in the field of wealth management. I did ask why he was driving an Uber in that case but this didn’t seem to diminish his level of enthusiasm for himself. Dew-Ann was so busy telling us about the $18 million dollar commission he was due on his latest “deal”, he forgot to take the right turn off and we ended up on a 10 mile detour. Why anyone would trust Dew-Ann with their money with his attention to detail would have to be a little questionable.

Last minute shopping at REI complete, it was time to head back to the mall to do our final bits and pieces. First of all, we headed to AT&T so Ben could pick up a US sim. He was served by Nas whilst his co-worker Shaz looked on. I was about to enquire where Daz was when Ben closed the deal and it was time to move on.

Then it was time to hit Safeway (an English chain I seem to recall) for our resupplies. I won’t bore you with the details but the good part was it didn’t take long and they had everything we needed.

The plan is to take three days food with us and mail drop six days to Tahoe City. We will do a mini-resupply in Incline Village to get us through to our resupply in Tahoe.

We were exhausted after our shopping so decided to stock up on some quality nutrition for dinner.

After dinner, we got back to the hotel and prepared our resupply package. I’m just glad the hotel manager didn’t stop by for a chat given the state of the room. Hilton, if you’re reading this, it was Ben’s fault.

All finished for the evening, it was time to relax, watch the college basketball game, and get some sleep before our final day off before starting the trail.