Date: 2006-06-28
From: Long Pond Stream

To: Monson
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: mist

Wednesday   What a day! I'm in Monson at last, out of the 100 mile wilderness, & I feel like I've actually accomplished something! :-) Almost 115 miles so far. Woot! Yeah that's right it's not anything at all in the scheme of things- I feel like I can almost hear distant thru-hiker laughter- but it's so nice to have completed a section, & it's so so nice to be warm, dry, clean, & to be lying on an actual bed. & I made it in time to call Grandpa to wish him a happy birthday! It was a happy day.   Overall, anyway- but there were definitely some less-than-stellar moments. I did 15.1 mi of the trail today but w/the added mileage I did when I got fragging lost for an hour, I feel like I was closer to 17. Bazzam! The weather today started out being perfect, cool & dry, & I got probably my earliest start yet out of Long Pond Stream lean-to, because I'm pretty sure I was on the trail by 7 a.m. I set off planning to make the full trek to Monson, but the trail proved to be a lot steeper than I was expecting-though not steep/bad at all, in a relative sense. But I was tired & filthy (clearly), & at times I found myself hatefully willing the trail to be flatter. I forded Big Wilson early in the day, & it was a challenge. I'd been warned about it- Tortoise said she almost drowned when fording it in '04- but the water wasn't too high today, & I managed okay. Besides, Tortoise is 5 ft tall & weighed like 110 lbs when Big Wilson gave her trouble, so it's not hard to see how a bit of a swift current could get ahold of somebody small. I, on the other hand, am certainly not small in the least- so I was sweet.There was another ford at Little Wilson, but it was pretty easy, & it was here that it started to rain- & I still had like 7 mi to go.    At first I booked it, going pretty fast for me, but I slowed down as the uphills got to me. Then I went through maybe a 4 mile period where I couldn't wait to get to Leeman Brook lean-to, & I was bent on crashing there for the night, even though it's only 3 mi from the highway that runs into Monson. But as I finally rolled into Leeman around 5 p.m., I see the Ivy League boys there, hanging out & drying off a little. They wanted to continue on to Monson, but were waiting to make sure Tortoise was able to ford Big Wilson okay. Nice guys. I told them she'd avoided the river & taken the 3 mi detour, so she'd be awhile, but that it was safe to assume she was fine.   Next thing we know Vango passes by, & yells at us to come on. There's talk of the new pub in Monson that just opened, & a reiterance of the fact that it was very close indeed. The Ivy league boys followed Vango immediately, & I was chided, told not to be lame & stay at Leeman, & then they were off. I rested & warmed up for 15 min or so, then followed, & I booked it pretty decent. It was fairly flat from there, & I think I did my fastest 3 miles yet until I got lost. On the trail. I should've just kept going straight but the milage on the sign was off & made it look like I'd gone too far, & plus there was another trail intersecting the AT, so I thought maybe that trail led to the parking lot. So I spent a good hour getting soaked to the skin as I searched up & down both trails, trying to figure out my mistake, & hoping to do so before dark. By then it was probably 7:30, & I definitely didn't want to have to stealth camp in that mess. But I made it out eventually- when in doubt, keep following the AT, should I guess naturally always be my policy- & I was able to get a hitch on ME 15 really quickly. Being a girl has certain distinct advantages, for sure. A nice nice lady named Beth picked me up. She used to own the Monson General Store, which did/does a lot of catering to hikers, so I think she intimately understood my predictament. Anyway, we got maybe a minute down the road before we passed Vango, & she picked him up too. So I figured he was walking along trying to get a ride in the rain maybe for an hour or so before then. Sucks. He wasn't a real happy camper, but Beth told him to soak up the experience as he complained, & he seemed to warm to that idea.   Beth dropped us off at Shaw's but not before giving us a rundown of it's history, which was cool. Mr. Shaw recently died, so Shaw's has new owners, these two ladies who are awesome. One is a newly retired high school English teacher. They hooked us up w/everything we needed, & I was so grateful. They even ordered food for us from the local pizza place & went & picked it up for us while we were showering. ( Side note: I forgot to mention that before the pizza all I'd eaten all day was this tiny bit of trail mix I had left over, the result of poor planning. It was unbelievably stupid, & I won't be that careless abt food rationing ever again.) It was also cool that everyone was here. Almost all the people I've met & hung out w/so far are here tonight. Laurent gave me a warm welcome when I saw him, which made me very happy.   Then, later tonight, I sat on the porch & listened to Humpty Dumpty tell wonderful hiking stories. Buddy, who's cooked & shuttled at Shaw's for 10 years, was out there too, & it was great just to listen . Buddy kept teasing me. Humpty is up here to do some trail magic for Turtle & Stick, & they'd talked abt him & what a great guy he is before, so I was really excited to meet him. There was this great ambience as he talked, & I found myself reflecting on the greatness of this experience. A good day, followed by a great night. & now it's past 1 a.m.! It seems like I haven't been up this late in forever. I've been converted. Goodnight.P.S.- My ass has gotten smaller.