EISPIRATEN

I finished up my hike to Twin Peaks on Sunday early afternoon near where the dirt road intersects the 2. I keep all my personal stuff in my day pack and transfer it to my pockets when I get in the car. I typically change shoes before I drive back and did the same on Sunday. Apparently as I was pulling my feet up to get the shoes on, my wallet slipped out of my pocket and fell on the ground. I had that pocket full of tissues so didn't notice that it had occurred. I drove back along Big Tujunga and when I was almost at the bottom did a quick feel to make sure I had everything and realized my wallet was gone. I knew exactly where I had lost it as there was only one moment when it had the chance to fall out. After exhaustively looking in any cracks in my car and my day pack I knew it was up near the Waterman TH. Unfortunately I didn't have enough gas to drive directly back up there and now had no credit card to pay for gas. So I went home ate a late lunch, gassed up and drove back up to my parking spot. Son of a bitch the wallet was gone. I met a couple of bikers and a hiker and asked them about the wallet and no one had seen it. I knew someone had taken it and it could be a bad actor.

I got home cancelled all my credit cards, checked activity on my cards but fortunately saw nothing. I ordered a new DMV license and had some fun on Monday as I had to drop my car at the shop and needed to rent a car without a license but got it done. This afternoon I got a text from the wife that a priority mail had arrived with my wallet and a note saying where it was found and that nothing was touched. The package has a return address and I'll send the good Samaritan a gift card. Now aren't hikers the best?

Daaaaang! For the record, if I found a wallet, I'd send it back to the owner.

A real horror story, until the end. I can certainly identify with it, having a number of times spent quite a bit of time searching my car for my phone or wallet. I once left my entire pack, with my phone in it. on the side of a road, and drove off. Fortunately, it was picked up by a fire crew who called me. I assume your phone number was nowhere in your wallet? A phone call from the Good Samaritan would have saved you a lot of trouble.

Awesome story, there are many good people in this world.

The phone number insert is probably a grid idea. Many years ago I lost a wallet in the woods between Arrowhead and Arrowbear. The following week I canceled my CCs, spent two hours in line at the Baldwin Park (I think) DMV getting a replacement license. I get home to the San Gabriel Dam to find out a good samaritan had found my wallet. Lucky for me they were persistent enough to contact my then employer, the LA County Flood Control, to get a message to me. At that time there was no way to dial the phones at the dam. He got our mailing address, a PO Box, and said he would be happy to mail the wallet to me. I think I had about thirty or forty dollars I told him to keep, but he said no, but did agree to keep enough for postage.

Many years later a buddy and I were doing a forty mile bike ride where I spotted a fat wallet on the side of the road. Granted I was hoping for a wallet full of Benjamins dusted in some white powder, but it was a working guy's wallet and the money was the rent money according to his wife when we dropped off the wallet.