Date: 2011-08-23
From: Moxie Bald Mountain Lean-to

To: Lakeshore House, Monson ME
Miles today: 18.0
Weather: broken clouds

(In which I make my last town stop)With town waiting, all of the northbounders wake up, eat breakfast and leave the shelter by 8am. Flat terrain and the lure of Monson mean that for the first time in a while I can maintain a 3 mph pace, and when I take a short break at a shelter I find out that Sherpa and Sprout were right behind me, trucking down the trail at the same speed.The easy terrain is only slightly complicated by three different river fords, and since the ground is still wet, I walk right through the first two fords, hardly slowing down. Only when the trail dries out and my shoes have mostly also do I stop and remove my shoes for the third crossing. River fords were one of my mild concerns at the onset of the hike, and having finally tried a few now, I've found that while not quite as bad as I'd feared, they are a considerable inconvenience, causing either hours of soaked shoes or stopping on each side to remove and put back on socks and shoes.Just past the last ford for the day is a cooler with ice and sodas inside, and I sip an icy cold roo beer as I hike. Of all of the unattended trail magic I've been privilege to, cold sodas have definitely been my favorite. Too heavy to carry and impractical to keep cold, stumbling upon a cold drink in the woods always feels a little bit like winning the lottery. I make a mental note to do some trail magic after I finish, and to find a good location for it.The second car I see drives me down the road to Monson and from there I wander through the small village examining my options. I reluctantly decide to skip the rumored free bunks at the sketchy evangelical thrift store, since I don't want to miss out on amenities like showers and electricity before my upcoming week in the 100 mile wilderness. Instead I walk down to the Lakehouse, of which I had heard only good things from sobos, and arrive just as Jude, a hiker helping out at the hostel, is about to drive to the nearest real grocery store half an hour away. Ben, who arrived before me, and I jump at the chance to resupply at a real grocery store with reasonable prices and selection.I return to the hostel with 10 lbs of food, which while bigger than a normal resupply is less than I carried out of Gorham, and should be even easier to carry now that I've stopped lugging water around.I stop by the general store to check it out and am surprised to find Amanda cleaning the shelves and Jessie lounging in a chair. When they got into town yesterday all of the hostels were full, so they arranged a work-for-stay with the owner of the store and have been staying in the upstairs apartment. Sherpa walks in, having arranged to stay at the religious thrift store with Sprout and Scrappy for the first night of their zero and the Lakehouse for the second night. The impression Sherpa got from the thrift store was even sketchier than the one I got, and I hope that they catch up so that I can hear the stories.While most hikers seem to zero in Monson, their last chance to do so in a town, I decided not to, having just neroed in Caratunk and planning to zero in the 100 mile wilderness. With no wifi between here and Katahdin, my next update will likely include my last entries from the trail, and by the time you hear from me again Portrait will have entered retirement, bequeathing to Jeffrey five months of memories and tens of gigabytes of photos.