Date: 2009-08-02
From: Gorham

To: Gorham
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Still in town and contemplating another zero day! So that would make 2 1/2. After spending over an hour talking to this lady I was able to get my pay as you go phone to work. As I am writing this, I should have a little over 200 minutes of talk time. It has been a real surreal experience just hanging out by myself for the last day and half. Buckeye is two days ahead by now, Blue Sky is off the trail, Magnum 457 fell and busted his knee and is off, I heard that Legs is a couple of days behind. Other than that not many north bounders that I know are around. I have been crashing at the Barn. Some girl from Moldova, a small country in Eastern Europe, works there and has been so rude. I am interested if anybody else has had a similar experience. The only other person that I can say has just not been nice to me on the trail was this guy who worked at Joes to Go, a little coffee and bagel spot right to the left of the trail, I think in New Jersey. So congratulations to you two for being the only two people out of the thousands of people that I have met out here that were just really sour. I just really feel bad about the Moldavian girl because she is obviously over here just for the summer on some kind of work program or something. Here she is with this amazing opportunity to meet a real eclectic group of people and experience the small town New England atmosphere that Gorham has to offer. And she is taking zero opportunity of it--spending all day sitting in her room. She will surely head back to her home country with a negative opinion of the US because she never gave it a chance and had a poor attitude about it. One thing that I have learned about this trail is that your attitude is everything out here. If you take everything out here that comes at you with a good attitude you will most certainly enjoy yourself. But as soon as you start getting a negative attitude, as soon as you do, it doesn¢t matter how much fun you are having, who you are with, or where you are. You will want to get off this trail. So to me the challenge is to keep a good attitude about life because only with this type of attitude will you see all of the good that this world has to offer. So this morning I slept in until nine o¢clock, a full twelve hours of sleep and it was amazing! Then I packed up my pack and went to church! It was great to sit in church and surround myself with other Christians. It just made me feel good about myself, and revived my strength to carry on this next 300 miles. Only problem now is I have to actually leave and start hiking again, which is much harder than expected. I was invited out to eat lunch with an older couple and gladly accepted. Subsequently, I was asked to hang out with a younger couple and their three children at a campsite for a couple of days. There reasoning for me hanging out was that they had plenty of food and wanted my help at eating it. Then I was just sitting in a gas station trying to deal with my new cell phone and this guy came up to me and asked me if I was a thru-hiker? I said yes, and he responded by telling me to go and pick out any sandwich, that he wanted to buy me lunch. I didn¢t have the heart to tell him that I just ate, so I agreed and picked out a chicken caesar wrap. I never even picked up his name, but it is generosity like this that makes this trip special. Two days ago, I was hiking into Gorham and met up with Crabapple, a guy that gave Blue Sky and I trail magic back in Catawba, Virginia. We instantly recognized each other, and his first question was ¢where is Blue Sky?¢ I had to tell him her story, and he immediately wrote her a note. A note that I never gave to her due to the fact that as soon as I arrived at Gorham she had already made up her mind, and it wouldn¢t have helped. Also as I was walking her to meet Suzie¢s mom whom had come to pick her up, a guy by the name of Keith from the Mount Madison Hut where we stayed and had a great evening reminiscing and sharing stories, honked the horn and pulled off on the side of the street. Only to yell out the window you cant quit now, and proceeded to try to convince her to stay on for the next two weeks. It is amazing how fast word travels in this small nit community that we share out here. I am honored to be a member of it and look forward to carrying on the tradition for as long as I live. Thanks for everybody's continuing prayers, and wish me the best of luck as I am about to enter into Maine tonight or tomorrow morning. I have never been before and I am really looking forward to it!!!