Date: 2007-07-26
From: Sabbath Day Pond Lean-to

To: Piazza Rock Lean-to
Miles today: 11.2
Weather: few clouds

To-day was either going to be rather long (20 miles) or rather short (11 miles) so I could stop into "Strangely Rangeley" for a some towniness depending upon the hitching feasibility. The farmboy Cheeze, used to the whole "early to rise deal", and has like no money ("Crime doesn't pay, neither does farming"), had woken up very early (i.e. much earlier than myself, who despite my best intentions has problems with mornings) with intent to skip town and make it the to the next shelter. We would meet up again in Stratton.The trail from Sabbath Day Pond to ME4 was not difficult, and before I knew it the miles had flown by and I was at the trailhead.Now ME4 is a much more used highway than East B Hill Road, and since cars were passing me left and right, I thought I wouldn't have much of a problem getting a ride. It proved to be my toughest hitch of the entire trip thus far. Most of the vehicles are apparently silly old tourists who probably think hikers are just smelly, thin people who depend upon the kindness of strangers on a daily bas...is. Never mind.It didn't help that while I was waiting, two SOBOs emerged from the northern end of the road (groups make it harder to hitch), and then they began wrestling each other after about 20 minutes of failure.Now, these guys are pretty big-- huge compared to someone of the likes of me. Both of them were at least 6 feet in height, and probably weighed a good 30 -40 lbs heavier than me. And to any ordinary driver driving past, it looked like they were in a real veins-in-your-teeth kind of brawl. I began thinking we were never going to get a ride if this kept up. Which wasn't good. I needed some town eats.It took about 45 minutes for a truck to finally pull over, at which point I had more or less given up and was sitting on a rock while the two SOBOs, who are really nothing more than horny college guys, peppered me with questions about "trailwomen."*Anyway, we got the 9 mile-ride into town. (All of the towns in Maine seem to be far from the trailhead. I guess the trail really is in the "middle of nowhere".) Rangeley is significantly larger than Andover; it's a tourist town on a lake, but it's clean and friendly, and I enjoyed a delicious tilapia meal at the Parkside and Maine Restaurant. I called Rose, and we had a nice little chat before my cell phone died. So it goes.The hitch back was much easier, though I had to take two of them. The first one was almost immediate, which was surprising. It was given to me by one of the most attractive girls I've yet on the trip (I know that statement doesn't have much weight, and I may be accused of having "trail goggles", but you gotta trust me that she was hot.) Unfortunately she could only drive me about 4 miles down the road before turning off, and I had to walk about a mile before another truck picked me up.Dogfather and Thr'ills were at the Piazza Rock shelter, which was only about 2 miles from the trailhead. They took an easy day and went canoing at a camp I passed that morning. Later that evening I climbed up to Piazza Rock, which was, I gotta admit, pretty impressive. Also, the privy here is by far my favorite one on the trail. It's two seats with a cribbage board in the middle. It even has a name: YOUR MOVE. Hilarious.*I have met very few women on this trip. Most of the girls I met were at the beginning, and by now I've passed most of them. Since I'm usually so tired at the end of the day, my libido has gone into what I believe to be a state of hibernation; the prospect of "hooking up" has more or less been the last thing on my mind.