Date: 2015-06-21
From: Wildcat Shelter

To: William Brian Memorial Shelter
Miles today: 19.6

It was downpouring when I woke up this morning. I waited it out for as long as I could. It seemed to slow down a bit Soni started packing up. I did surgery on my pack cover again. This time I remembered I had some safety pins. They did a pretty decent job of holding the rip closed!I left camp about 8. It was still raining a bit but not much. The sun was out by 9! My feet were soaked the whole say though, my boots did not dry out at all. It was a tough morning though. By 12 when I stopped for lunch I had only gone 6.7 miles. It was insane. I planned 20 for the day, I was never going to make it. I tried not to stress. Just take it one mile at a time. But it was hard. I just couldn't get my butt in gear. The trail sucked too. Up and down all day. Most of it was bouldering and rock climbing. It was rediculous. They found every hill and mountian they could and made us climb over it. The second we got to the top we'd go immediately back down. All day, up and down, up and down. It was getting pretty humid too. I was sweating like crazy. There wasn't much water options but at all the road crossings people left jugs of water. That's how I resupplied on water all day. I was getting pretty tired and i still didn't seem to be getting anywhere. The only thing I was looking forward to was a shower at Tiorati Lake. It's the only thing keeping me going. About a mile from the road to the lake, going up hill yet again, I about had a break down. I was pretty much hyperventilating from trying not to cry. I kept walking up that damn hiLl, I knew if I stopped it was all over. I was so ready to call home and tell them to come get me. They always say to never quit on a bad day. I knew this but was so tempted. A few minutes later I heard a hiker behind me. It was a guy out doing trail magic. We chatted for a bit. He came from the shelter I just passed but left because there weren't any hikers there. He decided to go onto the next one, the one I was planning on going too. We chatted as we walked. He went with me down to the lake. The shower was super disappointing. It was just a rinse of station for people at the beach. No curtain or anyThing. There was no way I could shower in there. There were a ton of people in there and kids. Just the topping for a crappy day. The guy doing trail magic, Rob, bought me a fudgical. He gave me grapes too! We went up to the shelter together. Chatting with him kept me going. He was a pretty cool guy. We talked about how the world could be ending and those on the trail would never know. (He gave me a low down of local news reports) Turns out that Rob worked in Tower 2 of the World Trade Center and happened to be vacationing in Maine on September 11th. Damn lucky to be on vacation, pretty fascinating. We made it to camp with plenty of day light to spare. Rob gave out trail magic to the others at the shelter. We have tomatos, grapes, cookies and granola bars. It was amazing. I am so grateful that I met Rob. He showed up at just the right moment. He definitely lifted my spirits and kept me moVing on. Just when I was thinking of giving up he came in and got my mind out of a bad spot. It was fate!It was pretty breezy so my tent dried out quickly. ThaNk God. I got everything set up. I was still super bummed about the shower. It's been about a week since I was able to get one. I was gross and smelled and it was just creeping me out. Tomorrow I was going into resupply, maybe I could shower then.One of the guys at camp was Wayfarer. I was hoping to catch up with him. He started his hike in FL and is going all the way into Canada. He's been on the trail over 200 days. Pretty awesome!Had a bit of service to skype with my sister. I can't wait to go home and see everyone on Thursday.