Date: 2018-06-22
From: Shaker campsite

To: October Mountain shelter
Miles today: 19.0
Weather: clear sky

I impressed myself today. The day started out super slow. We all didn't leave camp till about 9am. No one was really in a hurry because Caveman, Baby Face, Zoltan and Rodo only had to walk 3 miles to a road crossing where Caveman's parents were gonna pick them up and take them back to their house for the weekend. Caveman is from Massachusetts, so he's going to visit family for the weekend. Baby Face has college orientation to attend on Saturday. And Zoltan and Rodo just really wanted to rent a car and go do stuff in Boston. So really everyone but Skywalker and I is taking 3 zero days lol. Skywalker is hiking on a budget and has a tighter schedule then the rest of them, so we're hiking on for the weekend. The cool thing about Caveman's parents is that they wanted to bring some trail magic when coming to pick them up. And they went all out! They set out two large tables next to the road with neatly organized bags of chips, candy, soda, donuts, granola bars, everything! It was quite the spread. They kept saying take as much as you want! The only vegan snack were the sour patch kids, so i took a couple bags of those. Skywalker kept walking past the tables subtly taking small handfuls of stuff. He walked out of there with nearly a full 3 day resupply! lol Leach!We hung out at the trail magic for awhile, and then eventually parted ways with the gang. They won't be back on trail until Monday. It feels weird saying bye, but they'll definitely catch up to us again. It just might take a week or longer. After walking another mile on trail, we hit a dirt road and saw this tiny, wooden shack right next to the road. It was about the size of a closet and was being used as a stand-alone hiker concession stand! It was stocked with granola bars, candy, a mini fridge with sodas and gatorade. It even had an outlet for you to charge your phone! The stuff wasn't free, but you paid for it by the honor system. Everything had a price tag on it, so you just selected what you wanted and put cash in the box. With the trail magic we just had, i didn't feel like i needed anything. But the concept was so cool i wanted to participate. So i bought a Mt Dew! lolWe hiked about another 2 miles on trail and hit trail magic AGAIN! I guy named Jim was sitting next to two coolers in the woods, one with sodas and the other snacks! So we hung out for a bit and chatted with him. He was super chatty, but really nice. Talked a lot about his time in the military, and helicopters, and skydiving, etc. lolWhen we FINALLY started hiking again, I realized it was nearly 1pm and we'd only gone 5 miles lol! That's terrible. We still had another 14 miles to go. I honestly didn't think we'd make it, but we were just crushing the miles. It was awesome. Today was also the first day i've hiked without listening to ANY music and it wasn't so bad. Company helps though. Tomorrow the trail walks through Dalton, MA. It's 12 miles from where we're currently camped. Skywalker and I made last minute plans to stay in town tomorrow night. We're planning to get up early and get to town as quickly as possible, so that we have the rest of the day to chill. The biggest reason behind all of this is on the map it shows a motel right across the street from a place called "Juice & Java"... this could potentially be my first trail smoothie. This is huge. We've been talking about smoothies for days out here, so i'm banking hard on this Juice and Java place. Also, it's a nice excuse to kinda take a break, shower, and maybe do laundry. I still haven't taken a single zero day (a day in which no trail miles are hiked) since coming out here, and i'm kinda proud of that lol.