Date: 2013-06-26
From: Horns Pond Lean-to's

To: Stratton Motel
Miles today: 5.3

DAY 17MILES ON AT FOR DAY- 5.3MILES TOTAL FOR DAY- 5.3We woke up early so we could get down to Stratton for lunch and the weather had seemed to clear up which was good. Rooster was already gone before I got up which was at 5:30am. Guess that's why they call him Rooster. We took off around 7:30am and said our goodbyes to the mother and daughter whose names I never caught. This was their last day on the trail and then they were headed back home! It was all downhill to Stratton. Steep in the beginning but got better as you went. It was only 5.3 miles so it was manageable. When we got down to the highway I called Sue at the Stratton Motel for a ride. Stratton was 6 miles from where we were on the highway and I was NOT walking in. When she picked up she told me she was in Caratunk doing a shuttle and would be back in an hour or more so we should try to hitch a ride. Hitch a ride? I knew I was going to have to do it at some point but not already. So I said ok, hung up the phone, and stuck out the thumb. I got to say it is really depressing when cars just pass you by an don't even slow down. Or even worse, on top of all of that wave at you! Jerks. It didn't take us too long though. We got a ride after about 10 minutes. It was a guy who did construction and was heading into Stratton for work. Nice guy and I gotta say it was pretty exciting hitching a ride!First thing we did was go to the Stratton Motel, put our packs down, and head to the store across the street for some sodas. Gary chugged a Mountain Dew but they didn't have my soda I wanted so I decided to save it since we were headed to the diner next. We walked into the Stratton diner and got to sit a table with couches. Can't beat that. Of course the first thing the waitress put down in front of us was water. Water was the LAST thing I wanted. That's all we had been drinking! We ordered a Carrabassett pale ale and I got a morning burger (fried egg on top) with fries and slaw. Cleaned up the whole thing and another pale ale! That burger was so freaking good. They even toasted the bun! Granted everything you can consume tastes good to me but they really were top notch.After that we grabbed my package from the post office that Doodles had so kindly mailed for me and headed back to the motel. When we actually went into the Stratton Motel we ended up meeting this drunk old guy named Gus and the caretaker from up on Horns Pond Lean-to. Gus was pretty crazy. He had done the whole PCT, large parts of the continental divide, and now the AT. He would kind of just walk around the kitchen and living room there and mumble stuff to himself while sipping his red wine that had ice in it haha. I noticed there was a hiker box so I snagged an almost full fuel canister. saved $5 bucks right there! We went upstairs to the bunk room, threw our stuff on some open bunks, and then went back out to get a few extra groceries. While looking around in one of the stores I thought to myself that it would be nice to shave. It had been 2 and a half weeks (maybe this is TMI but oh well). Unfortunately all the razors were sold in packs of 4 which was of no use to me. The owner who had been helping me look around walked away and came back with a single razor and said, "Here. Go make yourself look pretty." Hahaha. First trail magic I had gotten I guess! A free razor woohoo! I promised him when we came back to buy Ben&Jerry's we would come here just because of that.When we got back to the motel apparently I had put my stuff on someone else's bunk not realizing it. It was a guy named Woodchuck who was a NoBo section hiker. We moved our stuff to another room and went to hang out downstairs. We talked to the caretaker for a long time and it definitely taught me a lot about the work that people do to keep the trail going and also the stats on people on the trail. After that it was time for a nice long shower where I could shave A little later on Leg-it came along.This was the first time I had really gotten a chance to talk to him and we talked about the Army and hiking. When I went downstairs Sue was finally back and she had shuttled in all the Stoners with Boners and Stilts, Globe, and Moto. There were going to be a lot of people here tonight! Sue was incredibly hospitable. She had hiked the trail herself with her dog Knucklehead quite a few years back. She knew the struggles and what it is like. Gary and I went back up to our bunks and once the whole crew came in it was like a mad house. It was nice though because I really only knew the Stoners with Boners as a group, but now I got to meet all the individual guys. There was Pivot Man who sat down next to me and we got talking for a while. Come to find out he was doing personal training in the city on 78th & Amsterdam before he came out here only across the park from where I was personal training. Small, small world! Then there was Happy Ending who seemed like the craziest of the bunch. He was from the Hudson Valley area on NY and wore a dream catcher around his neck and had a bun on top of his head. Then there were the other two who were "The Bobs" and had originally been on their own and not with The Stoners. Their names were Gramps and Bugaboo. Gramps was because in the beginning his knees were so bad he had to hobble down the mountains and Bugaboo was because his one "bugaboo" were spiders in the shelters. How cuteeee. I feel him on that one though.They all went out to eat across the street and in the meantime Cosmo got into town and so did a guy named Firefox who I hadn't met yet. I had heard not too great things about him so far but once I met him he seemed nice with just a bit of an edge on him. In his 30's and from Arizona. Just seemed that he wasn't looking for the party experience as some of the other hikers and wanted to take it more seriously. Time went by pretty fast with the socializing and whatnot that a couple hours had gone by and we figured why not go get more food? It was dinner time anyways. So we went to the Stratton Plaza Hotel and Lounge (you can tell this town puts a lot of thought into naming stuff) instead of where everyone else was at. Gave us some peace and quiet and plus we had heard bad things about the other restaurant everyone else was at (White Wolf). We got some loaded fries, honey garlic wings (incredible), jalape±o poppers, and some Belfast bay lobster ales. God I love the hiker diet haha. It was so much though we had to take some of it to go. We didn't hesitate to go get some Ben&Jerry's for later in the night though. When we got back Gramps and Bugaboo were cooking in the kitchen. I ended up talking with Gramps for a while. He was from Chicago and we had some good chats about hiking and just life in general. Once everyone got back from White Wolf we all just hung out. It was nice to be able to socialize with everyone that I hadn't gotten the chance to talk to yet. Gary and I and everyone ended up just hanging around, watching TV and talking all night. It was fun! I ate my whole Ben&Jerry's too in the meanwhile, which probably made it a 5,000 calorie day which was more than necessary. We ended up staying up till past 11pm which nowadays is super late for me. So sad haha. But again it was well worth it even if I would be tired in the morning. We had a good night and got to meet and find out about a lot of cool people. That's part of what this trip is all about! Plus a lot of then were taking a full zero day the next day for who knows when I would see them again down the road. All in all it was great Nero day in the little town of Stratton, ME