Date: 2017-07-08
From: Stealth Camp near Etna Road

To: Hanover
Miles today: 5.5
Weather: clear sky

Just over 5 miles to Hanover. Nirvana, where our son went to college. I know memories will flow over me when I step out of the forest. Even before, on the last mile I can feel it. Frodo and I walked the AT to the Velvet Rocks shelter 16 years ago. Sean was having a rocky time that first year at Dartmouth and now he¢s an accomplished and confident man entering his prime, nearly six years married to a wonderful woman. He even likes hiking with his dad and doesn¢t mind that the first day we had to tackle ¢The Hardest Mile on the AT¢ and that on the second day we did a 5-by-10, a crazy 21-mile day over tough terrain, starting at 5:00 am and ending at 10:00 pm.So many memories flood me as I stride along the trail for well under three hours. I am nearing another important spot. Bill Bryson¢s Book A Walk in the Woods begins with him walking past the co-op and the gas station, standing on the edge of the high school playing field. He looks off in the distance to where a path disappears into tall woods. It¢s the AT.  It¢s at the edge of Hanover. The path leads to Katahdin.Ten years ago I stood at that exact spot. It was a week after Frodo and I had finished our PCT thru-hike. I¢d flown to New Hampshire to be present at the dedication of Harris Lodge, a 3600-square-foot hexagonal log cabin, built with student labor, some volunteer, some paid. Sean was on the paid crew for a season and in charge for a season. Frodo and I helped for a weekend. I laid several hundred square feet of wood floor. (Frodo: The front deck of the lodge was modeled after the front deck Sean built for us, with the same cool herringbone pattern. Sean got his first construction job before college. He was spending the summer with my parents up in the mountains, listened for construction sounds, walked up and asked if they could use another worker. That takes some guts. Oops; now back to Scout.) So back then I was standing at the ¢Bryson spot,¢ looking out into the forest, and a couple with a dog walked up to me. ¢Are you thinking of doing the Appalachian Trail someday?¢ ¢Maybe.¢ ¢Well, if you do, we¢re Andy and Anne Steele and we live in town. We¢d host you when you come through.¢ That was 10 years ago. I am now writing these words from their house.I came out of the woods at 8:50 am. I was thinking of being here with Frodo and Sean his freshman year, of ten years ago and meeting the Steeles, of reading Bryson¢s beginning, having no inkling I¢d ever undertake the AT myself. Now here I am. There is one person I really want to share this with, but she¢s sound asleep in San Diego. I hesitate, then I call Frodo. I am tearing up even now, hours later as I write this. I am really here.Frodo goes where we shouldn¢t go now. ¢I wish you were here with me, cuddling in bed.¢I write these words, but I can¢t really think them. We both backed away from that. I¢m so glad she didn¢t mind being woken up.The Steeles have a lovely home on a lake. There¢s a sunroom where I¢m sitting right now.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...I walked through a Robert Frost poem this morning. No, not ¢Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood.¢  But I think I¢ll tell you about that tomorrow. And there¢s news from the Princesses to pass on ¢ They were appalled to learn that I slept in a dungeon, as princesses would be. That too for the morrow. Eat, Scout, eat.  Breakfast at Lou's this morning: http://www.trailjournals.com/j...