Date: 2019-08-24
From: East B Hill Road, Andover, ME

To: Frye Notch Lean-To (ME)
Miles today: 4.5

I got to sleep ok last night and then woke up at 3am. I decided to get up at 5 and take a shower. When I got here on Thursday, I used the indoor shower because they were doing work on the outside ones, so this morning I took an outdoor shower. My indoor shower was cold. This one the temperature would swing from hot to cold without warning. Fortunately, I was able to end the shower when it was warm. As we were were packing up to leave, I decided to look to see what AWOL¢s guide had for the post office¢s hours. He showed they were open Saturday mornings! I then checked Google Maps and it also said the post office would be open this morning! I should be able to pick up our package today and not have to worry about forwarding it to another place!While everyone else ate pancakes, I talked to Spike¢s grandparents on the phone. My Mom¢s birthday was earlier this week, and I didn¢t have service to call her at the time. Anyway, SC and I got a ride on the shuttle into town at 8am. Given the lack of wheat-free foods, distance from town, and lack of hot showers, I didn¢t love the hostel, but it easily has made SC¢s top 3.We dropped our packs off on the porch of the Little Red Hen and went inside for a real breakfast. I ordered ¢Sarah¢s Sensation¢: an open faced omelet with corned beef hash, steak, potatoes, grilled onions and peppers, and cheese. It was exactly what I wanted and needed. I heard some locals in the restaurant talking about someone being a ¢miserable human being,¢ and I knew they were talking about the woman at the post office before they even mentioned her job. After breakfast, we went to the post office and picked up the package. It took all of 45 seconds. Really, we couldn¢t have done this yesterday? I¢m sure she¢s had a hard life and it¢s probably hard to find someone to run a post office in rural Maine. Back on the Little Red Hen porch, we unpacked the box and divided up the food. As we were doing this, we found 4 monarch chrysalises on the porch. This is the first time I¢ve seen chrysalises in the wild! This day was continuing to get better and better. Now that we knew what food we had in our box, we went to the 2 convenience stores in town to do the rest of our resupply. This should get us to Gorham, NH where there is a Walmart! I¢ve never looked forward to a Walmart so much in my life. Back to the porch where we take our food out of the packaging and divide it up. We then go back into the restaurant to get ice cream and Clif bars for SC. After we¢ve paid, we ask about a ride to the trail. They have just hit a lull in their busy Saturday morning, so a guy who appears to be the owner or at least manager gives us a ride. I tell him how much I enjoyed Sarah¢s Sensation, and apparently Sarah is his daughter!He drops us off at the trail and we¢re hiking. I¢ve only planned for us to go to the next lean-to, 4.5 miles. We take our time and walk together. We haven¢t done much hiking together recently because SC is so much faster than I am. This is nice to have a chance to really talk. Just a mile in we run into a couple of guys we met our second week on trail. We get to the lean-to before 4pm. The next lean-to is only another 3.5 miles, but it does involve hiking over a mountain. Eventually Sidewinder shows up. He did the 10 miles we slack packed yesterday and then the 4.5 from the road we did today. We hope we get to hike with him for a little while. There are some friendly nobos here. They are all tenting, but came over to the lean-to to make dinner and talk. There¢s also a college orientation group that has taken over the main tent sites. They appear to be from Harvard, and they don¢t appear to understand how to close the privy when they¢re done using it. The signs that say, ¢Latch the door or porcupines will eat the building¢ are funny, but based on how many teeth marks there are on privies around here, they speak truth.Today was a good reset after my bad day yesterday.