Miles today: 10.1
Total Miles: 256.9
Yesterday ended with a relentless and steep downhill so of course this morning began with a steep uphill. Luckily it wasn’t as long, but we went right back down and then right back up again. These mountains aren’t kidding around.
The day went by quickly. Our goal was to get to the road that goes into Andover, Maine so we could go into town to resupply at the store and go to the post office and then hitch back to the trail where we’d find a place to camp.
I was behind the boys all day today, as usual, but luckily I wasn’t too far behind. As I saw the road into town through the trees I noticed a car stop and the boys begin loading their stuff in. They’d successfully secured a ride 9 miles into town! I screamed at them through the woods and ran downhill to catch them. I asked if there was room and my friendly hiking companions all said no. The driver was confused as there was clearly definitely extra room and I explained that they are just cruel people. Ha. We packed into the car as I yelled at them for being rude. The driver was actually a guy who’d started thru-hiking in Georgia earlier this year but hurt his foot so had to stop. But now it is healed and he is on a mission to hike the tallest peak in every state–he was doing Katahdin on this leg. He said after hiking and having to hitchhike into towns he’s now vowed to always pick up hitchhikers. I’ve always been creeped out by the thought of picking up hitchhikers but now after having done it myself, I feel the same way.
Andover was a tiny town with just a general store, a few shops, and a post office. We resupplied, ate some real food and ice cream and relaxed for a little bit. Wolf Bird and Shuffle decided to stay the night for various reasons so Cool Blue, Google, and I hitched back to the trail.
We only had to wait about 1 minute and this guy in a pickup stopped for us. His dog was in the front seat so we loaded all of our bags into his already somewhat full bed of the truck. Then we had to also get into the bed of the truck. We were basically sitting on the tailgate… and he had this cover for the back of his truck that goes over his stuff that we had to hold up over our heads as he drove us the 9 miles. It was a funny sight and all the more comforting once we realized we were sitting on the obituary page of the newspaper. Once back at the trailhead we found a campsite right near the road and went to bed for another day of hiking tomorrow.