Lordsburg to Co-op Windmill: 17.5 miles
Total miles: 102.4
We had plans to be out of town by 7am, but town has a way of holding us back an hour or so. This morning we were delayed, because I put on my new shoes I’d received the day before and all the sudden they didn’t seem to fit, despite feeling fine the day before. Back on the PCT I had horrible foot problems from the heat in the desert, that made the first six weeks of the trip very unpleasant. With my new shoes not fitting, I had a mini-meltdown in the hotel room before coffee could be had. You’d think after two thru-hikes I’d have my foot issues figured out, but apparently not. The pair I started the CDT with was the same style and brand of shoe I finished the PCT with (Saucony Peregrines), and I ordered the pair of shoes I finished the AT with (Saucony Koas). Neither have ever given me problems before. On the bright side, Garrett reminded me that I’ve had shoe issues at the beginning of every thru-hike and we’ve completed the trail, so that this was probably a good omen.
I calmed down, and fixed the shoes the best that I could. The insoles on the new shoes seemed too thick, so I transferred my old ones over to replace them. We then cut out this weird elastic thing covering the tongue to help the left shoe become looser. The changes seemed to help, and finally we were out the door to McDonald’s; which had the only good coffee in Lordsburg.
McDonald’s is always very welcoming to hikers, and to anyone really. This morning we had an executive breakfast, and I tried a green chile burrito that I convinced myself was unique to this McDonald’s, or at least New Mexico locations. I’m a sucker for a breakfast burrito, and this one surprisingly did not disappoint.
Eating a spicy fast food burrito for breakfast requires a bit of digestion before any amount of activity can be done, so we lingered until 8:30 when we felt ready to stroll out of town. 
We walked three miles on paved roads out of town, skipping the unmarked trailhead (which is really just a barbed wire fence to crawl under), causing us to crawl under the fence further north, and navigating towards the trail. When we found it by way of GPS on my phone, it looked no different than what we had been walking on. We had about ten miles of cross country travel, walking across the desert towards the mountains in the distance. Sometimes a well traveled trail appeared under our feet, but more often than not we felt like we were the first ones to be walking our steps across the dry earth. We continued to scoot under barb wire throughout the morning. Once there was a gate, but a bull was guarding the passage, so we choose to scoot again. We stopped for a couple of breaks to get out of the sun, and eventually made it to a dirt road for the remainder of the day.
We came to well, the first water since we left town nearly 15 miles earlier. We took a liter, and hiked 3.3 miles more to a wind and/or solar powered well. It was 5:30pm, a little early to stop, but it’s always comfortable to camp by water and there was nice camping nearby. We’re trying hard to break our trail legs in slowly, and our packs will be lighter tomorrow after having ate a dinner and breakfast out of them!
We only saw Nemo and Larry Boy when they caught us at the last water, but other than that we felt like the only hikers out in the trail. While that isn’t the case, only 9 people started the same day that we did. When we started the PCT, at least 50 people started the same day. And on the AT, over 100 people started on the same day as us. We definitely have noticed the change!
CookingScraps 