Date: 2014-06-28
From: limestone spring shelter

To: glen brook shelter
Miles today: 17.6
Weather: overcast clouds

While getting ready this morning, bubba, looper, and i agreed to meet in salisbury to hit the grocery store and get whatever else we needed. Perfect. Looper is an early bird so he is usually off first then me and bubba last. Meeting spot: grocery store. So i ate breakfast while getting all my stuff together. All done, ready to go, just gotta brush my teeth. So i reach in my good hygiene bag pull out my little tube of teethpaste and get to work brushing. It didnt take long to realize i had not put teethpast on my toothbrush. I knew right away that i had two small tubes in my bag, one toothpast, one foot anti fungus cream. I knew what happenend and immediately stopped brushing. I spit out all i could, rinsed out my mouth and the toothbrush. I will tell you how glad i am that the anti fungus cream tastes like nothing, still gross. I brushed my teeth this time with real teeth paste and will look closer everytime from here on out. Ok, fresh breath without fungus and i was ready to go. Looper was already gone and bubba was finishing packing. I figured i would walk along slow till he caught me up and we would walk together to town, 4 miles. I got to the AT from the side trail and headed on north. It was a great morning, cool and clear. I plodded along and took some nice pictures of some young pileated woodpeckers. I hear the adults nearly everyday but they are shy and i never get a photo. These younins posed for photos and even some video of them lookong for belreakfast. Not far after them i saw a porkypine heading back up his tree for the day. It looked like he had been out all night and needed a nap. I was surprised bubba had not caught me up yet. Around thru the woods i walked past old stone walls and giant boulders. One boulder is named 'giants thumb', it looks like a giants thumb, but made of stone. I saw where they got the name from. I saw a log so i sat on it for a couple of minutes then when i got about three miles in i got a text from bubba. He asked why there were no whitr blazes on the road. How did he get past me? I wrote back, 'are you lost? Am i lost?' He wrote back that he was by the hydro electric dam. Oh shoot, we passed that yesterday. I called and gave him the bad news that he had turned the wrong way onto the AT. He had been following blazes but south, they are exactly the same. He went 2.5 miles the wrong direction. I felt bad for him cuz i know i would be kicking myself for making such a mistake. I got the rest of the way to town, found looper in the grocery and told him of the news. He of course thought i was kidding, nope its true. We would wait for our buddy to show up before leaving. This wasnt all bad as we had not planned on a terribly long day and i needed to get some string and sew on my flag, the hot glue was letting loose. We made ourselves at home in salisbury. First the grocery, then the bakery, then the general store. I had food, baked goods and a sewing kit. I got to work on all of it. It takes me forever to sew so that took up a good bit of time but i was glad to have it done. It looks great now! It took bubba abiut two and a half hours to get there. He was bummed but laughed it off, what else could one do? He got food and we sat on the bench and made fun at him. Hes a nice fella and took it well. We also met up with Shortcut. I hadnt seen him for a while, he did the half gallon challenge with me. We all left town together, all stuffed from most of us being there too long. All we do in town is eat. Back on the trail we went about a half mile and came upon trail magic. The american long distance hikers assoc. was grilling dogs and burgers! It would seem rude to look trail magic in the mouth so i opted for a burger. I should not have opted for the burger i would later find out. We sat and talked with the guys putting on the magic and tried to let some food digest. I had a big ol food baby in my belly. The worst was that i had a six mile hill in front of me. We all said thanks and got back to waddling up the hill. It was two named hills but with no down between them, kinda weird. The first was lions head. I plugged my way along trying to drag all of myself up the hill. It got pretty steep toward the top but i made it. Then on up to bear mtn. That sucker got steep too but six miles later i was feeling less bloated and getting my mojo going. The most awesome part was that on the way up i passed the 1500 mile mark, so cool. Then down the other side to Sages ravine. There was a nice river running at the bottom with a few nice swimming spots so i figured why not try it. The water was absolutely freezing. I could only get in up to my thighs and my feet went numb. At least i got to cool my core temp down right? I threw back on my boots and got got back to the hike.. From here i had a climb up race mt and then the big one, mt everett. Race mt was cool with not a bad climb and a beautiful ridge walk with great views. Mt everett was another story, this one was shteep! Thats a little more steep than steep. It was all rock and pretty much a soul crusher. Especially since i was climbing it at the end of the day. At the top we were rewarded with no views but shortly over on the way down we got nice trail magic. Dottie put out roughly thirty gallons of water. She also had out two cooler jugs with ice water. I embraced the brain freeze. It actually felt good to go hypothermic! Thank you so much dottie, whoever you are. We were only a couple miles from the shelter and it was all downhill. I got to shelter to find a group of about thirty boyscouts all set up, no problem though, there were a ton of good spots to set up. We all got set up and ate dinner. It was good to be getting back in the hills and oh yeah, it was good to be in mass. yup another state! I still get pretty jacked up when crossing borders. Even after travelling so far through all the hard stuff i still feel like im living the dream!