Okay, I have 44 miles to go, and two days to do it. Time to hustle.

First, we have to hitch two hours south, then forty-five minutes west, get Jessica's car, and then drive the two hours back to Markleeville and drop me off.

Thankfully, we found some kind strangers who picked us up for each of those legs without too much trouble, getting us back to Markleeville around noon -- perfect! I can have a real lunch!

Around 3:00pm, I was back on the trail -- which shortly looked like this:

It didn't last forever, but it was nice while I had it.

Every though, I found myself a nice ridge which overlooked a valley. According to the map, this valley contained Markleeville and a few other towns, some thirty miles away -- my plan is to watch all of their fireworks shows.

When night fell, the cities illuminated -- my plan was going to work! Shortly after that, fireworks started going off in a handful of separate locations. I couldn't hear any of them (or get decent pictures), but it was still really cool. The neatest part was that I was around 4,000 feet higher than the towns, which meant all of the fireworks were exploding below me.

Happy birthday, America.