Date: 2004-08-26
From: Georgia

To: Maine
Miles today: 1703.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Mile 1703.6 (less than 500 to go!)Cabin atop unnamed mountain, VTAugust 26, 04, 2:16 a.m.Watch out when someone says, "Two can play at this game." This likelymeans the object of your torturous amusement has just snapped, gonecompletely sideways and is about to give you a taste of whatever crapyou've been dishing out.Tonight I say this to the gods. I raise my titanium cook pot full ofhot chocolate and canook whiskey (in roughly equal proportions) to theScorpio night sky and say, in essence, "bite me."This is night number two bereft of sleep. Last night it was the LongTrail Lodge at the intersection of Vermont's famed "long Trail" and theAT When you enter Vermont from the south on the AT, you aredouble-timing, making miles on two famous trails at once. ATthruhikers walk about one hundred miles of the Long Trail in theirquest for the AT Holy Grail, then cut east and away from the remaining160 miles of northern Vermont. About 36 hours ago, I said goodbye to my last Long Trailers, a fewlovely ladies including Toco with legs that went all the way up. Thesethree had achieved Killington Peak a day behind me, but I'd lingeredand so was there for a mid-afternoon farewell. I'll tell you aboutKillington later. It was fantastic, a grueling ascent to a highaltitude paradise, a place I should have stayed an extra day had I abrain in my head. Alas.I do not. So with golden afternoon sun shining in open wood framedwindows in that mountaintop gem of river rock and mortar, and all thosealpine evergreen trees in witness, I shirked a no-fault, win-win,one-night romance bird-in-hand opportunity and walked down the mountainto instead spend money on a room in a lodge by the frikken interstate. The room was stuffy and small and I shared it with long timeacquaintance couple Chris & Elly and slept just three hours before beingawakened by rumbling trucks on the highway. Were it not for adelightful dinner of shepherd's pie and salad and pints of beer and ashot of Tullamore Dew, all kindly provided by Still Frank in a HomerSimpson "Woo Hoo!" spirit of giving (Thank You Frank!), retired Navycommander Frank's way of celebrating "just 500 miles left!" of thetrail, I woulda written off the Long Trail Inn as a bust.Instead, I rose from bed at 7 after five insomniac hours to a fine fullcomplementary breakfast and another day back on the trail. I hit thelocal P.O. first, dropping a well-spent $10 spot on a mail-forwardthat'll save my feet 10 pounds til western New Hampshire. Then Idallied at the local deli and dallied some more uptrail eating my delilunch and finally, with not-nearly enough time to make it to my stateddestination, I launched into a 17-mile ball-buster at around two in theafternoon. Maybe maybe if I'd been a good boy this year and notwanked too much or rode too many dirty trains through dirty tunnels orbitten the heads off too many bats, maybe I would make it by dark. I made it. I made it with feet screaming and mind scrambled agog. Imade it to a lovely lonesome large Cape Cod gray-flavored oldmountaintop cabin not even listed in the guidebook but "known of" tothose who listen and dig for special treat tips from past thruhikers orsouthbounders. I made it and boy was I relieved. I clamored up the cabin's threestory ladder to an observation deck with panoramic views of a sunsetmoonrise green mountain Vermont world and took my ritual sponge baththere in sight of God and all Creation but hidden from the three otherthruhikers present, Impulse, Still Frank & Paparazzi, down below. Then I came down and cooked up a fancy brand-name backpacker meal givenme by the Polar Bears when they left the trail unexpectedly, ate it andpassed out.And woke up two hours later. Ping! "When you have insomnia, you'renever really awake and you're never really asleep." So says FightClub. I concur. It's 3 a.m. now. The spiked hot chocolate of an hourago is working. I'm nodding finally. God Bless you and keep you, goodnight.-RSM