Date: 2017-06-29
From: Pinkham Notch, then Lincoln

To: Lincoln, NH
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: few clouds

Entry by Frodo, so Scout can get other things done. We are staying in the vacation condo of an outdoor sports enthusiast. Mike hiked the southernmost section of the PCT early this past winter, but we didn¢t host him in San Diego. We were unavailable, but our good friends Jan and Jim stepped up and took wonderful care of him. Then Jan remembered that he has a condo up here near the AT and so she pretty much asked him if we could use it. Mike also is a serious biker and runner and skier, and we look forward to meeting him this evening when he comes up to start the long holiday weekend. In the meantime, we are enjoying the condo and finding it much more amenable than a motel room for all the things we need to do. Many thanks to Mike. So what does a typical zero day look like for Scout? He is not really your typical AT thru- hiker, so don¢t extrapolate this to anyone else. Scout spends some time on the phone ¢ calling his parents, his brother and sister, our kids, often a friend or two. These tend to be fairly long conversations.Scout spends a lot of time on the laptop computer. He reads emails and feels compelled to answer every single one. Sometimes, if I¢m there and put my foot down, or if he runs out of time, he doesn¢t get them all answered and then he feels bad. Some of that is on me, but he does need to eat and sleep and even relax a little bit. He also uploads all the photos he¢s taken since his last opportunity to upload, and he chooses the ones he wants to accompany his trailjournal entries.He makes sure he¢s up-to-date on his handwritten journal and hands the pages to me to transcribe.Speaking of relaxing, I brought the most recent Time magazine and Scout spent maybe an hour reading that while he ate lunch. That¢s his typical MO at home ¢ he likes to read the newspaper or a magazine while he eats lunch. But on his other two thru-hikes he has actively avoided hearing the news. I remember in September of 2015 on the CDT someone let slip something about Trump¢s campaign and Scout said that his campaign wasn¢t real, it was just a joke, ¢cause Scout hadn¢t been following the news. He has been saying that this hike will be different than the others, not just in the type of terrain, the frequency of towns, and the fact that I won¢t be around much, but in his approach as well.  So he¢s not avoiding the news this time. Oh, and he's shaving, too.Still speaking of relaxing, we walked to the complex¢s Sports Club (in the rain, which fell most of the day) and soaked in the hot tub for a while. It was nice to have each others¢ uninterrupted attention to debrief on our lives since we had seen each other last.Scout eats a lot on zero days. Breakfast was bagels and fruit, lunch was a burger and fries, and Mike generously took us out to a very nice dinner. There was a lot of snacking in between as well. On the PCT and CDT when we spent a zero day in town with other hikers, meals were usually spent as a group and could be very chatty as we shared trail stories. I often had to ask everyone to not ask Scout questions and sometimes to not even talk to him, because then he would chat when he NEEDED to eat! What did I do today? I went shopping for some fresh food for Scout¢s upcoming resupplies. I typed in a trailjournal entry or two. I sewed a patch onto his pants. I organized the food for his next few days, two resupplies of two days each, then one day, then four days, but he only spent five minutes figuring out what he¢ll take for the next two days, since he¢ll see me after that, and he left the rest for later.  A bit frustrating for me, but he was pretty beat.And I did one more thing - I told him I am proud of him and impressed that he is hiking this gnarly trail.-FrodoSome lovely lupines:  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...