Date: 2010-08-03
From: Upper Goose Pond Cabin

To: Kay Wood Shelter
Miles today: 17.6
Weather: few clouds

Day 112: Two Before NoonScatters woke up when she smelled pancakes, and then she made sure I was up, too. Blueberry pancakes!! The big group of hikers ate breakfast by the cabin until there were no cakes or coffee left. Beaver Chief decided to make pancakes his way and poured a bunch of batter (enough for several pancakes) into a cast iron skillet and cooked it over the fire. Beaver Chief always knows what he's doing around the fire. A few kids were skeptical, but the Chief worked his culinary magic and made a perfect 3-pound blueberry pancake! It was amazing, and I got footage of him flipping it. Well done. After breakfast, folks started packing up and leaving. The trail magic with [the other] Tattoo was only two miles away, so most of us were excited for that, too. Scatters and I were the last to leave, but we got to chatting with the very nice caretaker, Laura, and her daughter, Gretta (there's a photo of them in yesterday's post). The volunteers for the cabin come out for a week, and Laura's family was all the way from Minnesota!We finally headed out around 10:30 and found Tattoo with his red pickup full of sandwich food and drinks. Hey Tattoo!! Scatters and I wouldn't have recognized him cause his beard was gone - ha! I wonder how many of these guys out here we'd be able to pick out if they all shaved...We had a nice chat with Tattoo about all things AT, and had a lot more to eat. He'd gotten there early, so he'd seen most everyone who'd stayed at the cabin the night before. Good thing since he drove two hours to get here! He'll be heading back out to the trail this week to complete the New York and Connecticut sections. Soon it was time to get back to hiking. We said farewell to our friend and started up the hill. Thank you SO MUCH for the magic, Tattoo! Have a great hike - hike on!The next few miles were a nice uphill and then it was flat for a while. It was only 12:30, and we had only done 2 of 17 miles, so we kicked it in gear. We walked briskly until we hit a shelter 8 or 9 miles out. Beaver Chief, Power Pack and Deetz were just leaving after a break and a snack. I got water and we snacked and then we were off again after Dr Rock caught up. We'd heard about the "cookie lady" who lives .1 miles off the trail on a blueberry farm, so we went to check it out after covering a quick 2.2 miles and saying goodbye to Rock. Nobody was home (so no cookies), but there were notes to help ourselves to water. We took another break and said hi to the dog. We wondered what the "secret ingredient" was for staying motivated out here. At this point, Scatters and I both believe that only injury could stop us from reaching Katahdin. I really believe that it's gonna happen. (smiley)After our no-cookie break, we had 6.6 to go. We buckled down and hiked. Until we found a mess of blackberry bushes FULL of ripe berries. We couldn't resist, so we ate a bunch and then we filled my Nalgene bottle a quarter full. We hiked on and found more bushes. We filled it halfway. Then, when we were almost to the shelter, we went crazy on a field of bushes and filled the whole liter bottle up. Berries in the morning for breakfast!We finally arrived at the shelter and everyone was there eating dinner. We soon followed suit and hung out a while as the sun went down. We plan to hit up Dalton tomorrow for laundry and a phone charge (maybe run into a few familiar faces?), then onwards to Mount Greylock and soon V E R M O N T !!(crazy)One Life is back on the trail today - yay!!