Date: 2006-08-05
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

A nice little Saturday today. It started with sleeping in a bit then enjoying the coke-a-cola Classic that we had packed from the trail magic yesterday. Our plan was to get to Manchester Center, re supply, then do a few more miles after that. The whole terrain into town was relatively easy and we made good time. Once we got to the road crossing we started hitching. We got a ride right away. Once in town we went to EMS. EMS is a chain of outfitter stores all over the northeast that people who are from there rave about because they don¢t have any local outfitters like in the south that actually know about the gear. I decided to buy a new guide book since I left mine in Boston to get me through till I get my old one back. After purchasing the only one they had (2005 issue)I went next door to the grocery store. I ran into a bunch of through hikers "hanging out". They were sitting under the no loitering sign but didn¢t feel that applied to them. We all decided to head to the steak house to eat at 4:30. When we got there we had a party of 8. Coheba, Otter, Ponch, Moe, Liken, Carbomb, FDR, and I. When the waitress came up to tell us the specials and mentioned the whole menu I knew we were in for a long meal. During our meal FDR and I were trying to plan our mileage for the rest of Vermont. I grabbed my new guide book and realized it didn¢t have the mileage in it. It would have been great if I needed to for sight seeing and know the history of places but I need to know how far it is from point A to Z and every little place in between. It would be nice to know all that stuff butIt didn¢t serve me any purpose so I returned it. When I went back to return it the guy gave me kind of a hard time. After I explained that if they had the newest edition it wouldn¢t be a problem I think he finally realized that if he just refunded me I would go away. While I was waiting for FDR to finish con-ing the guy into making him a photocopy of one of the maps instead of buying it I headed towards the liquor store to grab a 6 pack to pack out tonight. After all it is Saturday. I got side tracked and sucked into a J. Crew outlet store. When I walked in I could hear the silent alarms going off. They had a lot of great deals but nothing light enough for me to carry. And besides what ever touches mo pack will have to be burnt to get the smell out of it. I quickly left and headed back to meet FDR. I told him the liquor store was on the way out of town. We headed over there and grabbed a 6 of PBR's to go and headed to hitch. We caught one of the first coming by. It was 2 recent high school graduates from Williamston, MA. The same town I was in 5 days ago. We asked them how long it took them to drive here and they said about 45 minutes. 45 minutes. 5 days. Think about it. They dropped us off at the trailhead and we hung out for a bit then parted ways. They drove off and we walked up. We only planned on going a few to the first shelter. We decided to camp up on the hill from the shelter so we found a tent platform and set up camp. When I went down to check the register I found it was full. Luckily I had been carrying an extra one for a situation just like this so I replaced the full one with an empty one. I kept the full one to send it back to its owner like I hope to get mine some day. It was lights out after finishing the beers and talking about how amazing it is that we walked from Georgia to Vermont.