I froze my butt off trying to land a hitch to Denver, to then catch a flight to Austin, but nobody was pulling over. So after three hours I called it quits, bought a bus ticket, and had a terrible Greyhound experience. Everyone seemed to be coughing and sneezing, and at every rest stop at least 80% of the passengers departed to have a cigarette. But I made it, crashed at a cheap hostel, flew to Austin, and joined Sea Lion on day #2 of the Austin City Limits Music Festival. It was a total sensory overload going from days without seeing a single human to suddenly being crammed into a park with 100,000 people.
After a few more days in Austin, my soon to be home, we departed in our trusty Prius (named Patsy) to drive back home to Maryland for my good friend Ellen’s wedding. We also visited some other friends and family and loaded the car up with some stuff to haul back to Austin. The wedding was gorgeous and an absolute blast.
We eventually made the slog back down south but stopped in Memphis to visit my good buddy Micah, who was my coworker at ski school in Vail the previous winter. He showed us the impressive Concourse structure and then we crashed at his friends apartment, which is fantastic loft above an old printing press newsroom that seemed like it was frozen in time since the 1950’s.
After a few more days in Texas, it was time to get back to the trail and finish out the Triple Crown. Sea Lion joined me for hundreds of more miles in the car and we boondocked at the Buffalo Lightning Casino in Northern New Mexico. The next morning we blasted the final couple of hours to Chama and began to hit snow. It seemed fitting that I left the trail with snow so of course I should re-enter the trail with snow. However, I was not looking forward to hiking in this cold snap.