Date: 2008-07-18
From: Eliza Brook Shelter NH

To: The Carriage Motel - North Woodstock NH 
Miles today: 8.8

Day 152 Friday July 18 ¢ The Carriage Motel - North Woodstock NH - Miles Today: 8.8 Total Miles: 1803.5The miles came slow this morning as we climbed South Kinsman Mountain and North Kinsman Mountain, both of which were about 4300' and were basically rock scrambles. The trail continues to be very slow, which is what we are envisioning for the next week or two. Mentally we have no expectations for fast miles, so the slowness does not bother us.Today we saw our first hut - Lonesome Lake Hut. It was much different than we had envisioned as it looked quite new with it¢s natural shaker siding. Inside were 6-8 picnic tables for the dining hall with the open kitchen right beside the dining area. We helped ourselves to the leftover muffins and chocolate cake and all you could eat soup and bread for $3. Today¢s soup was split pea soup, or as Brakeman would say ¢cut bean soup¢. By the time we walked out of the hut to hit the trail, we were so full we didn't want to hike. I'm not quite sure if going to these huts and eating all you can eat is a really good idea, as it makes hiking afterwards quite difficult and uncomfortable. But we did enjoy ourselves and the company with us! We were pleasantly surprised when we left the hut to find the trail fast and easy going. What a sweet surprise. It sprinkled a bit shortly after we left the hut, but not enough to wet us. We climbed the grassy bank to Interstate 93 about 11:45 and were really confused as to where we would go to pick up our hitch because you're not allowed to hitch on a major interstate. So we walked along the berm of I-93 to the exit for Rt 3/North Woodstock and then continued to walk for quite a while until we ran into some traffic. Right around the point where the traffic arrived was where the AT trail apparently crosses. I guess we should not have climbed the grassy bank to I-93 after all and just stayed on the trail until this point. We probably did a mile of road walking when we should have been on the trail. But we arrived to the same place. Oh well. The guidebooks were not real clear. Once we got to the point where there was traffic, we scored our hitch in no time and we were at the motel by 12:30. A van with 6 people stopped and picked us up - they had room for 2 hikers! We chatted with them as we headed the nearly 6 miles into North Woodstock, none of us really knowing where our motel was located, other than ¢Main Street¢. Three of the people lived in Israel and the other 3 lived in this general area. They were out doing the normal touristy things when they stopped to pick us up. In Israel there apparently is a trail similar to the AT, but only a couple hundred miles in length. They have been doing sections of the trail in Israel and were full of the normal hiking questions for us. Knowing the challenges of hiking, they took pity upon us and picked us up. Some very nice Trail Angels.   We had a bit of a challenge when we got to the motel - our food drop package was not here! Yikes. We did get Peggy's mint brownies package though and boy were they good. Thanks Peg! There were so many, that we shared some with the owners of the motel and with the Nova Scotia couple a few rooms down from us. We called our Support Team and learned that our food drop was mailed on time via First Class Mail. The hotel owner headed to the post office again to get today's mail and to see if we had any other packages. We did get another package -Jim's normal little package of chocolate - but not the food drop box we were expecting. So later in the day, Brakeman went back to the post office. They looked around a bit more and found it! Perhaps the confusion was that Thomas was written all over the box, rather than Carriage Motel. This evening, between 4:00 and 8:00, the skies opened up numerous times with good downpours and thunder and lightning shows. We were glad that we were not on the trail. The forecast for the next 5-6 days is calling for the likelihood of an afternoon thunderstorm every day so I think we're doomed. Hopefully some days they will pass us by and hopefully other days we'll already be at camp and set up. While Brakeman worked on chores in the room, Grasshopper walked across the street to the Laundromat. It was quite hot as there was no air conditioning. She alternated between sitting outside the doorway in the shade and sitting inside, but both areas were uncomfortably warm. Unfortunately she could not stray far as we could not afford for all of our hiking clothes to be stolen! This has happened to others and we did not particularly want to experience it ourselves. While waiting for the laundry, she read the newspaper flier and discovered that the Lost River Gorge is in this area. The Lost River Gorge was one of the many sites she visited as a kid when her family traveled through New England in their blue Superior motor home. Gosh, she¢s been here before! How cool! Check out time at the hotel is 11:00 and per numerous signs posted in the office and our room, it is not negotiable. Of course, we inquired anyway about the possibility of a later checkout, but to no avail. The owners are the cleaning crew and with a full house scheduled for tomorrow, they need all the time they can get to have the rooms ready for the new visitors. The motel has a swimming pool and a huge game room, both of which were heavily used by kids and adults into the evening. Many families have a tradition of coming here each year. Lacking swimsuits, we did not partake in the swimming activities.I think that's it from North Woodstock. Tomorrow we have a 2.6-mile climb to our Liberty Spring tent site. There are rumors that the hitch out of North Woodstock is hard, so we may have to be a little creative and see if we can't ask some people to take us back to the trail. Goodnight from North Woodstock and just over 1800 official miles completed!