Date: 2011-09-19
From: Millinocket, ME

To: Day 130
Miles today: 0.0

I woke up feeling great this morning. It's amazing what conquering one of the most epic mountains in all of New England does for your mental and physical health. My one and only goal for the day was this: get to Bangor in one piece and have as much fun as I can while doing so. I've got a plane flight back to West Virginia that leaves out of Bangor in a few days so I really don;t need to be in a hurry to get there. But, you see, Bangor is a really special place for me. I was born in Bangor right on the banks of the Penobscot river 23 years ago and I haven't been there since 1993. I'm actually really excited to go check out my hometown again. I've always felt a strong connection to Maine for some reason even though I've been in Florida for most of my life. And literally all of my childhood memories are of Bangor so I have a feeling that this is going to be a rather surreal experience. Winding up in Bangor with two days of down-time was no accident...   So I got up early and said my goodbyes to John Wayne (sadly, this is the last time I would ever see my friend.) I left the hotel and made my way towards the highway, eager with anticipation. I immediately ran in to Moses and Strawberry who were flying a sigh trying to get a lift over to Acadia, which I thought was a great idea. So I said peace to those dudes and headed towards the nearest gas station to make a sign of my own. There I got a scrap piece of cardboard, borrowed a sharpie and made myself a fancy little sigh that read "AT Thru-Hiker: BANGOR OR BUST!" and set out for the highway again. Before I could get there I ran in to TwoPer outside and he has a big problem: his plane leaves today, he only has a couple of hours left in his hotel, and he still has a bunch of weed to smoke and alcohol to drink. I was obliged to help him solve his problem so we went back to his room and pounded wine and chain-smoked hash for 2 hours. Job well done. We then split up and went to our respective highways to hitch out. Until next time TowPer.   It took me less than half an hour to get a hitch out with a guy who was going all the way down 95 passed Bangor. My sign worked! The dude was super cool to. He's a fellow hiker who works in Maine as a ski instructor in the Winter and in North Carolina as a rafting guide in the Summer. We smoked hash and traded stories all the way to Bangor. I got dropped off at a fast-food joint off the highway where my childhood friend Kurt was waiting for me. Me and Kurt were practically attached at the hip between the ages of 0-5, but we fell out of touch after I moved away and hadn't seen or heard from one another for almost 20 years. It is wasn't for fabebook, we may have never seen each other again. He scooped me up and gave me a little tour of Bangor. Some of it I remembered, most of it I didn't. This town is actually a lot more beautiful than I remember. Even in my fancy idealistic childhood memories I don't remember all of the water and the fall colors, just snow mostly. Kurt drove me back to the house that he just bought and introduced me to his new wife. Him and I have obviously been living racially different lives and have developed differing opinions politically and ideologically, but we were able to find some common ground: weed and video games. We've been smoking, gaming, and catching up for the better part of the day now. I'm really glad that I was able t reconnect with my olf buddy after all these years. Again, I'm reminded of how inherently good and genuine most people are. People from different walks of life, who would never get along in their day-to-day lives, still share some sort of commonality, something that brings us all together and makes us uniquely human.