Date: 2017-08-04
From: Eastern Pinnacles

To: Highway 94 and Appalachian Motel
Miles today: 16.4
Weather: few clouds

At 7:12 am, I pass the first road, highway 17. It is the site of a trail-famous hot dog stand. But it¢s 7:12 am. Sigh.As I hike on I think of the best hot dog I¢ve ever had. I don¢t think I¢ve had one since May of 2015. I like them grilled, not boiled, with relish and lots of mustard. For a special treat I tuck an extra-crispy slice of bacon alongside the hot dog in its puffy white-bread bun, top it with grated cheese ¢ jack and cheddar ¢ and put it in a toaster oven set to broil, for 40 seconds. Make two of them. (Frodo: then feel your arteries clogging up!) They are that good. Aren¢t nitrates one of the essential food groups?And by the way, I just stepped over a handwritten note on the trail ¢ ¢rattlesnakes here ¢ hiding in rocks.¢:http://www.trailjournals.com/j...But the best hot dog I ever had was boiled.The trail yin and yangs me today. I really want to make these 16.4 miles today, to reach a bed, air conditioning, and a milkshake. The day starts smooth, great trail tread, and I click along at well over a 2-mph pace. (Imagine saying that last sentence if you were in a car, or on your bicycle for that matter.) then I hit open granite ridges that go on for miles. I knock back my estimate of arrival time at the road from 3:00 pm, to 4:00 or even 5:00. Then between 11:00 and noon the trail goes into a phone booth; Mr. Hyde disappears and Dr. Jekyll emerges. I¢ve crossed the New York/New Jersey line. Maybe it¢s a good omen.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...The rocks, the short climbs where I have to use my hands, the descents where I throw down my trekking poles and use my rear end for extra grip, all disappear. I am rolling along. Not 4:30, not 4:00, but maybe 3:30, I am thinking.And I am thinking about second chances. There is another hot dog stand at highway 94, fifteen miles after the last one. I¢ll walk the short 0.2 miles down the road before I call the motel for a lift.On the AT I¢ve had trail magic maybe 10 to 12 times over these two months. On the PCT easily 20 to 30 times over five months. And the AT northbounders, I¢ve heard it said, get trail magic at every road crossing for the first month or more. On the Continental Divide Trail, all five months, I think it was three times. One cooler with sodas in Colorado, a hiker who had stayed with us pre-paid our room in Leadore, and the third was¢¦.We were 5 days into our CDT hike, in the dry bootheel of southern New Mexico. Frodo was with me for that section. We¢d hiked cross-country that morning and were nearing a water cache, the last one before Lordsburg, and our water bladders were near dry. There was a white truck parked 200 yards away on a dirt road. ¢Must be Border Patrol,¢ I thought. There was plenty of drug running in the area. As we neared the water cache a man walked out from the truck and intercepted us. ¢Would you like hot dogs, sodas, and chips?¢ ¢Apple" parked his truck there each day for a week or so. One to eight hikers might come by in a day. He¢d bought a surplus Border Patrol foot-pressure sensor, which he buried under the trail. We¢d stepped on it and the buzzer on his belt beeped. Hot dogs boiled fresh for us. I ate my two and half of Frodo¢s second.Oh, and here's another turtle I saw today:  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...I reached highway 94 at 2:30! In Maine 16 miles was a big day; I might finish at 8:00 pm. Today at 2:30.But as I¢m salivating for hot dogs and I see ¢Mitch¢s Roadside Grill Stand¢ ahead, there¢s probably something I should tell you about Frodo and myself and second chances. Yes, we are as deeply in love as I describe, but we were once separated, for two years. There¢s more than enough blame to spread over the both of us. Few would have predicted it, those 30 years ago, but we fought to find a path back, and we did after two years. (Frodo: We wouldn¢t cherish each other as much as we do, had we not gone through that experience.)They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The photo at the top is of my second chance hot dog stand. It made me glad I missed the first stand. And the proprietor, Mitch, turns out to be a man with a golden heart. He sells hot dogs, but gives away joy. ¢Here, I¢ll loan you my car,¢ he says when he finds out I¢m thru-hiking and have errands to run in town. But it¢s not a car I need, I need shorts and a t-shirt so I can wash all my clothes at the motel and go to dinner and the store while they wash. Mitch walks away and comes back with a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. ¢Here.¢ Mitch is clean and sober since October 31, 2006. When he drove me to my motel, after stopping to treat me to a milkshake, I hugged him and found myself tearing up. I reached around my neck. I am going to give away my AT Karma Necklace, the necklace I want to keep but must someday give away to a special trail angel. ¢No,¢ Mitch says, putting a hand on mine as I start to lift it.Second chances. Two hot dogs. Meeting a saintly roadside hot dog seller. But the second chance I most value, and thank my lucky stars for every day, is Frodo.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...