Date: 2011-08-15
From: (130) Katahdin

To: (131) Millinocket, ME
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

As far as I am concerned, it¢s not over until my foot hits the pavement of my house¢¦I woke up this morning and planned out how I wanted to spend my day in Millinocket while I waited for the section hikers Nimble and Mr Starbuck to finish their own summit of Katahdin. Though done my thru hike, I still had very important things to do, such as eating or turning the hostel¢s sink faucet on and off with wild-eyed glee (I think it¢s magic). If I was lucky, I might even be able to fit in another shower! With such exuberant luxuries at my disposal, and nothing but free time on what I considered to be a zero day in my adventure, I was going to enjoy myself (Assuming I could climb down from my top bunk without collapsing from exhaustion).Right shoe still flopping around from its broken laces and jigsaw puzzle insole, I paid a brief visit to the local library before meeting Tridub and heading down to Subway for lunch. Tridub and I had heard a lot of stories on the trail about thru hikers gaining a ton of weight after finishing because they would continue to eat massive amounts of food without exercising, not to mention their bodies were in starvation mode. While there is nothing wrong with eating 4000 calories a day when you are burning 4000, many hikers continue to eat this same amount back at home while only burning the standard 2000 a day. The hungry body turns the excess into fat. Not wanting to fall into this trap myself, I only ate a single foot long sub (I was so hungry after that I continued to pick the crumbs out of the wrapper, however small they might have been). Tridub, sacrificing even more than I, ate a veggie sub. A vegetarian before the trail, he had decided to start his old diet up again (He was not a vegetarian on the trail simply because it would have been a pain). To me, Tridub did not seem to have issues with the eating of animals themselves, so much as his own footprint on the environment, which went along well with what I already knew about him and his aspirations to study plasma physics and create clean energy sources. He wasn¢t changing the world by being a vegetarian, but at the same time, he wasn¢t adding to the problem. After eating, Tridub and I visited the dollar store where I bought a bag of carrots to snack on and some razors to shave with. Going home meant women, so naturally the beard had to go (All three patches of it!). I shaved back at the hostel, and watched as my appearance returned to that of a young man. I had thought that I might regret shaving off my beard, but I didn¢t care at all. It was merely another step towards re-integrating, and I had done it without hesitation. That night, after a bowl of Ramon noodles that I had found in a hiker box, I called Nimble and Mr Starbuck and they told me that they had finished their hike and would pick me up at the hostel in the morning to take me home. I was going home! As for Tridub, he had a plane to catch in Bangor, and would be leaving the next day as well.I don¢t really care that I am done hiking or that I will be home soon. Having been on the move for so long I have learned to adapt very quickly to new things, and this is no different. Going home is the next big thing, another page in my journal, and it is exciting not sad! I have started a journey that I know will never truly end, and it is life!