Date: 2006-09-13
From: Shirley Blanchard Rd

To: Rte 15
Miles today: 6.3

Tuesday Sept 12, 2006Near Guilford ME Amoeba pulls in behind a Monson-headed, VA-plated, brown and white ¢78 VW camper bus containing 2 cool people and one cool little black dog: Purple Sherpa, Purple Rose and Dixie. Toot hello! Follow the VW to Monson.Purple Sherpa, Purple Rose and Dixie will be staying at Wildwood Shores Campground, Amoeba at Shaw¢s. Zig Zag will be staying at Shaw¢s too.Amoeba had thought Pat Shaw was still running the hostel. Misinformation. Pat has moved to Oklahoma. Shaw¢s is now owned by Dawn and Sue. Buddy is still there, helping out with breakfasts, shuttles, etc. Keith Shaw Jr still lives in Monson, but isn¢t with Shaw¢s Lodging anymore.Lots of changes since last year.Dawn and Sue have had the rooms painted and freshened. Amoeba takes a private room with 2 double beds, one for herself and one for Zig Zag when Zig Zag arrives.37 years teaching high school English, Dawn is used to having summers ¢off¢. This year she¢s had not even a day off, summer is the height of hiker season.Amoeba thinks more about going into business as a ¢hostel-sitter¢, spelling hiker-hostel owners or managers when they need some time off. At Shaw¢s are O2beehiking, Cosmic Punchline, Chad, Bama, Ponch and Moe, Baldylocks (these last 3 Amoeba has previously met at Bears Den), Professor and his grandson Jesse James (age 12), Soundbite John, Bravefoot, Banjo Man, Karuna Miel who Amoeba and Zig Zag met March 3 in Georgia (Karuna is Sandskrit for ¢compassion¢, Miel is Spanish for ¢honey¢), Cornbread, Chase (a savvy hiker who has hiked 8000 miles of trail and who maintains a section of the AT between Atkins and Pearisburg in VA and who is a Field Editor for the Companion) and Mrs Catman, who is spotting her husband Catman, as he finishes the AT.Purple Sherpa, Purple Rose and Amoeba eat supper at The Pub, waited on by a mom and her sweet kindergartener daughter, Isabella Grace. It¢s chilly. Just the excuse they need for a dessert of sweet, creamy, hot Irish coffee.Wednesday Sept 13, 2006Railroad crossing off the Elliottsville Rd to Rte 15, N toS, 11 miles, plus one or two miles of approach? Nah! They go in about 3 12 (?) miles on the tracks, well past an iron railed bridge without finding the AT crossing.   They walk back out 3 12 (?) miles, find the AT crossing on the way out, but too late to start today¢s planned hike. Instead, 6.3, S to N, from Shirley Blanchard Rd to Rte 15. 13.3 (?) miles today, 6.3 count.Shaw¢s breakfast, your choice of one-fer, two-fer, three-fer or four-fer, has not changed. A ¢fer¢ is an egg, a piece of sausage, a piece of bacon, a pancake or French toast, a serving of home fries. One-fer is one of each, two-fer is two of each, etc. Eggs are prepared as you like them, over easy, over hard, or scrambled. Buddy cooks. Dawn serves.Chad (eating a Three-fer) to Cosmic Punchline: ¢Old four slowing you down there?¢Cosmic Punchline (pausing over a Four-fer) to Chad: ¢Nah. Just waiting for the syrup.¢Purple Sherpa drives Purple Rose, Zig Zag and Amoeba to a railroad crossing off the Elliottsville Rd. They¢ll walk the tracks to the AT, turn left and hike back to Rte 15. Buddy says it¢s about a mile of track-walking, the map makes it look more like 2 miles.Start 9:45. Track-walking is tough. The ties are too close together to step on every one, too far apart to step on every other one. The coarsely-crushed rocks surrounding the ties are unstable, shifting, loose. Through her Crocs, Amoeba feels every rock. Her feet aren¢t tough yet. The rocks hurt.Suddenly Purple Rose, who is still nursing a right calf shin splint that she got in Massachusetts, takes a spill on the tracks, wrenching her right knee and bruising her arm on the hard steel rail. Ouch. That spill doesn't stop Purple Rose, though. She's tough. She hangs in there, walking every day the rest of this Maine hike with her right ankle and calf wrapped in an ACE bandage. No complaints.They walk and walk past signs saying 23, 24 and 25 (are these mile marker signs?), over an iron-railed bridge to a flat place where¢s there are vestiges of road ruts, piles of gravel on each side of the tracks, and, a ways off, a yellow gate. It¢s 11:45 AM. They give up, turn around and start to walk out. On the way out, they spot an AT white blaze on one of three railroad ties that are lying on the ground perpendicular to the track. On closer look, there¢s a double blaze on a tree in the woods, obscured by leaves. Here¢s the trail. But now it¢s too late to meet Purple Sherpa anywhere near the agreed-on time, or even before dark. Luckily there¢s a cell signal near the AT crossing. A series of 3 calls to Directory Assistance (which curiously has no listing for Shaw¢s Lodging), a call to Amoeba's son John to get Shaw¢s Lodging phone number off the Internet, a call to Dawn (who is both concerned and comforting). Later she¢ll say, ¢It¢s our job to calm the waters, not ruffle them.¢ A call to the postmaster (Dawn has told them Purple Sherpa is at the Post Office). The postmaster fetches Purple Sherpa who has just left the building. ¢You¢ve got a phone call,¢ he says. ¢Huh?¢ says Purple Sherpa. Purple Sherpa will retrieve them at Elliottsville Rd and take them to Shirley Blanchard this afternoon where they can salvage some of the hiking day by walking 6.3 back to Rte 15.For future reference, from the trackside AT blaze back to Elliottsville Rd it¢s about a 50-minute walk.On the trail from Shirley Blanchard to Rte 15, they meet Suzanne and her dog Sadie prospecting with a metal detector in and near an old stone foundation. The other day Suzanne found an old belt buckle. She and her husband also dive in Moosehead Lake looking for historical artifacts, bottles, etc.Out about 6PM.Due to the railroad track episode, a new set of hiking plans.At Shaw¢s, hello to Pi (wearing an MIT sweatshirt), who has been hiking with his wife K¢ache. K¢ache¢s off the trail since Hanover with an ankle injury but hopes to meet back up with Pi at Abol Bridge. Maybe they can summit Katahdin together. Hello to Burkenstock, who Amoeba thinks she may have met earlier this year at Bears Den and hello to Brian, a SOBO who started 9-5-06.