Date: 2013-08-31
From: South Arm Road

To: State Route 17, ME
Miles today: 12.5
Weather: haze

Okay, let me just start this day the way it really began. I woke up and flipped on the phone. There was the most endearingly sweet anniversary message. It brought tears to my eyes. Happy 27th anniversary Honeybun, cantaloupe lips, bologna head... I'm so sad not to be with you today...our first anniversary apart. My message was signed by a blue Blueberry. I thought about our wedding day and honeymoon all day. Every game I played with the girls revolved around our marriage. The day I said "yes" was the day I made my best decision ever and the real adventure began. Headed to The General Store for breakfast and power drinks. In addition to full breakfasts the girls ordered chocolate pie. All the hikers were raving about it. They were disappointed, saying,"Grammies chocolate pie is way better than this." Grammie you need to come up here and show them how to make a chocolate pie. We got in the van for a 45 minute shuttle to the trail. Gotta go, will finish later...We got a ride via David, a very interesting man. We thought he was Native American. He has long black hair, wears turquoise jewelry and a cowboy hat with a beaded band. It turns out he is a Mayan from Guatemala. He entertains us with funny stories about previous hikers. He greets us after every hike with lemonade. He dropped us off at 17, where we hiked North to South as per his advice. This way we got the hardest part of the trail done first and before the afternoon rain storms. When we arrived at the side of the road, which is above a huge lake with tree laden islands and mountain edges, we found some of our favorite hikers: a smiling Grim, Whistle Ralph, Cascade andHunger. Clevergirl and Dumptruck had to do some flipping. We will miss seeing them but it was great to see the rest of the gang. Big climb down and then up Bemis Mt. We had to switch to Crocs to ford the river. It was so cold but loads of fun. When we got to the top of Bemis we had a blueberry fest, sitting in the bushes themselves and gorging on wild berries. A great way to celebrate my anniversary and (tadah!) our halfway mark mileage wise on the AT! 1,092 miles! That's a whole lot of walking! We are so happy to be counting down. Later in the day we climbed Old Blue Mt which also seemed appropriate because blue blueberry and I miss each other. The skies opened up their tears and drenched us. We were surprised because we managed to stay warm. I was worried that if we got wet in ME we couldn't handle it. Our rain gear and movement kept us warm enough even though we were soaking. Our boots filled up with water and mud. Rain means more mud and very slick roots. We got near the end of the trail and a hand carved wooden sign said, "Ol' Bitch". Cub was offended and said "Why in the world would anyone put that here?" I replied, "Sadly you are about to find out why". It was a slippery, rocky straight down shot with some rebar and lots of bottom scoots. Not as tough as we've been through but a challenge. Hard way to end a day but we were just happy not to have our packs. David met us which was nice. We had a place to go to shower and get dry. We ate at The Red Hen Diner which was having an all you can eat pizza and salad. All homemade and ready to eat. We even got a huge, warm Molasses cookie. It tasted like the most delicious ginger bread ever. We got back to the lodge and I paid our bill, talked to Ilene and David until Blueberry and Whoops called. Nice to hear from home. Late to bed and we have an early start tomorrow. =