Date: 2008-08-25
To: HOME!
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: light rain

Well the last time we wrote, we were still technically in the White Mountains. Right after the last entry from Gorham, we headed into the Mahoosuc Notch and the infamous Maine border. The guidebooks warned us that this would be the hardest section of the trail, and they did not exaggerate. It took us a solid two hours to get through the one mile of trail through the notch and it exhausted just about every last ounce of my meager upper-body strength. I had noticed another sore developing under my shoulder strap, very similar to the sore I had gotten from the suspected black widow bite, and it really started to hurt as we were bouldering across the Maine border. No sore could dampen our spirits about reaching the "Welcome to Maine" sign though! The whole gang was there (Hearts, Tupperware, Twiggy & Spoc) and we all crossed over together. By the time we hiked the next 5 miles to Grafton Notch the novelty of Maine had worn off and I was in pain. We somehow scored a ride all the way into Andover and set ourselves up in the lovely Andover Guesthouse. The rest of the gang slackpacked the next day while Bunz and I continued our Tour of Emergency Rooms from Georgia to Maine. The hospital was located in Mexico, Maine which is just around the corner from Peru, Maine and China, Maine. Those Mainers...guess they have a lot of time to come up with strange town names during their 9-month long winters. After a couple more trips to the ER over the next few days, a "lancing" and a heaping helping of I.V. antibiotics, we were back on the trail. The final diagnosis for the sore was MRSA, which is an antibiotic-resistant strain of Staph. It's actually not as big of a deal as the Dateline specials make it out to be, but it's a pretty nasty situation when your hygiene level is as low as ours was. We had great stops in Rangeley with the Riff Raff crew and in Stratton at the White Wolf Inn. We took the famous canoe ferry across the Kennebec River and got some amazing hitches from raft guides near Caratunk. We rolled into Monson with high hopes that the rain that had been pissing on us from the moment our boots crossed into the White Mountains would cease and we would get great weather through the 100-mile wilderness. We stayed at the Lake Shore Inn in Monson, where owner/bartender Rebekah treated us like gold. She didn't mind that we squished 6 folks into a room built for 2 and she allowed us free reign over her wide array of kayaks, canoes and paddleboats. We spent two nights there and slowly made our way out on Saturday for the final push to the Big K.Once we hit the ground for the final leg, Bunz and I got the itch to hike. We had originally thought we would finish the 100-miles in 5 days and summit Katahdin on the 6th day, but we were so excited to get there that we ended up summiting a full day early. We spent the last week hiking mostly by ourselves and it was such an incredible experience to get to be out there accomplishing such an enormous undertaking together. We hiked into Baxter State Park on the 19th and as we crossed into the park I started to cry. This was the place that we had been dreaming about since we sat on that rock on Springer Mountain. It definitely lived up to all the hype. It is an absolutely beautiful place. We spent our last night on the trail at the Birches shelter with Beershake, The General, Jukebox, Memphis Tim and Loafy. Bunz and I could hardly sleep from nerves. We hit the trail the next morning at 6:45 and practically sprinted the first 3 miles. I couldn't believe how easy those first 3 miles were! I kept thinking, "What's the big deal about Katahdin? It's not hard at all." Well, then we hit the boulder field and entered a world of pain. The winds were blowing 40-50 miles per hour and we were above treeline trying to scoot ourselves across giant boulders. If I got blown over up there like I did on Franconia Notch, Bunz would've had one broken wife. Luckily the boulder field is only a mile or so long and then you have a nice gentle grade to the summit. I was actually so cold and chapped from the wind that I thought we would just snap a quick picture from the top and then scoot back down to the base of the trail. I became so focused on trying to keep warm that I didn't notice the Katahdin sign until we were about 100 feet away. The instant I looked up and saw it I immediately burst out into loud, embarrassing sobs. We got up there and just held each other, crying. (Okay, maybe Bunz didn't cry...) We took shelter from the wind behind some boulders, cracked a warm Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboy and toasted to our success. I kept looking over my shoulder at the sign though, just to confirm that we really did make it there, and it wasn't all a dream. Pretty soon after, a lot of our fellow thru-hikers started showing up and we got to celebrate with them. Jukebox even hiked up a bottle of champagne so we had somewhat of a high-brow affair up there. The cold and wind finally bested us and we got ourselves back down to the Birches. Loafy's parents were there and they very graciously gave us a ride to Millinocket where we checked into the first hotel that would take us. We had a low-key dinner and slept like rocks. Jukebox, The General and Jukebox's dad gave us a ride the next morning to Bangor where we picked up our rental car (A Kia Rio! Aww yeah) and headed south. We didn't tell either sets of parents that we were done so we got to surprise them on Friday when we showed up on their doorsteps. It was the perfect ending to the most amazing chapter of our lives so far. Now we're just biding our time in Lawrenceville, Georgia until we can find a place to live in Athens and some income stream. I still can't believe we made it!!! Thanks to everyone who supported us along the way! We couldn't have done it without y'all. We were so blessed with all the hikers that we got to meet and have fun with and I hope to see y'all again one day. Happy Trails! Hike the good hike!