Wait, a complete stranger just walked up and read your notebook at a bus stop? That blows my mind. I would be so weirded out if some random person in Denver started commenting on my journal pages. Did she just glance over your shoulder or did you actually hand it to her? Either way, that line about ugly pages being the ones you actually use is kind of perfect. Three notebooks in two months is wild, I can barely finish one in a year.

Wait, you did 14 miles on 1.5 liters in Zion in April and felt GOOD? That is wild to me because April on the West Rim can still hit 80 degrees by early afternoon, and I would be a dried out husk at that point. The part that really got me was the ranger saying folks overpack water and underpack salt, because I have never once heard a ranger say that out loud. Everyone I know loads up 3 or 4 liters and then feels like garbage slogging up the switchbacks with all that weight. The pretzels thing makes sense though, you were getting salt and carbs while sipping instead of chugging plain water and flushing everything out. I am honestly not brave enough to cut my water that hard yet but this makes me want to try a shorter desert hike with salty snacks and see how it goes.