Date: 2022-06-23
From: Cookie Lady

To: Dalton MA
Miles today: 9.4
Weather: few clouds

We woke in an airplane hangar this morning. It was perhaps the coldest morning of our hike. I was glad to be out of the wind. We all slept warm and soundly despite the strange sounds made by a sheet-metal building in the wind at night. I had hoped to catch cookie lady this morning as we left and ask if anyone in her house was willing and able to slackpack us to Dalton today. Crystal Campsite (13 miles) was our ultimate destination but I knew Joni¢s leg would be helped along without weight and the logistics of slackpacking us seemed pretty straightforward. So I was mentally rehearsing my spiel as I walked from the hangar to the porch of the house. We were met by a hiker-looking guy, conspicuous because of his flannel shirt (not ¢hiker garb¢). I introduced myself and he told us he was Baked Potato. He thru hiked last year and was back this year for trail magic. He was crawling north with the tip of the bubble hopping to road crossings in his Honda Fit. ¢Is there a way I can help you guys out?¢, he asked. ¢Funny you should ask¢¦¢Soon after we were loading $5000 of gear and personal effects into a complete strangers car. We traded phone numbers, arranged a meeting spot (Angelina¢s Sun Shop), and waved goodbye. Surreal. I joked with the boys yesterday that the rules of the trail are a little different: When a strange lady offers you cookies if you¢ll sleep in her blue bus you say¢¦? That¢s right! You say ¢yes!¢So we shouldered our daypacks with water, snacks, first aid, and TP and set off for Dalton - 10 miles before 1:00. Joni¢s leg, despite improving yesterday, did not cooperate today. In the last mile before town we decided we¢d stay the night in Dalton instead of pushing on to Crystal Campsite. Today¢s short day plus the zero we will take tomorrow will put our 300-miles-in-June goal out of reach. Pushing ahead, on the other hand, is foolish and irresponsible. Tom Levardi is a legendary AT Trail Angel. The sidewalk in front of his house is the footbed of the AT. ¢I¢ve been doing this for 43 years¢ he told me. ¢I was out for a day hike in 1979 and a hiker asked where he could stay in town. He didn¢t have money for the motel. I gave him directions to my backyard and told him he could tent here. I¢ve been helping hikers ever since.¢We¢re in that same backyard now. Our two tents bring the total to 13. It¢s not a big yard. ¢It¢s a pretty normal Thursday in June¢ he tells me. As the boys and I sat at the picnic table in the shade of an oak tree, Tom chatted us up. The boys are interesting to people and they¢re willing to talk. ¢Are you guys up for some ice cream?¢ Sure thing! He went inside. We were expecting icy pops or fudge bars. Tom walks out the door 10 minutes later with 3 ice cream bowls and a diner-style glass, all with decked-out strawberry ice cream sundaes! Each topped with whipped cream and a strawberry, they were a surprise on top of a surprise! What a guy - legendary. We¢ve been hiking along with the Mass Walking Tour traveling band for the last week or so. They hike from town to town and perform concerts. Dalton was on their calendar tonight. I walked about a mile into town with the boys for the 6:00 show. We stayed for an hour before slipping out the back. We saw some trail friends and learned what a hammer-dulcimer was. It was a fun show but not exactly exciting for young boys. Also there was a lot of talking about green space, land trusts, ¢visions¢, and ¢master plans.¢ Meh. The boys enjoyed it enough. ¢Better than laying around in the tent,¢ they said. It rained for our whole walk there and most of the way back. No one was bothered.We ate at Angelina¢s Sub Shop for lunch after meeting BP there. Great sandwiches. We somehow missed the State Lacrosse Champions parade through downtown. It was just behind us as we walked to the concert. Joni texted and asked if we had seen it. No. We did see candy on the sidewalk on our way back - a sure sign of recent parading. Joni spent much of today after we arrived not walking. Baked Potato did give her a ride to Dicks Sporting Goods to get compression socks and KT Tape. She walked with us on our way the the concert and stopped at the Cumberland Market convenience store to get some dinner - she skipped the concert. We¢ll update the plan tomorrow. Hotel? More camping in Tom¢s yard? We¢ll see. I don¢t want to forget the train. Grayson and I were lagging coming in to town. A train horn sounded very near just at the bottom of the hill. We jogged about 200 yards to see it. Standing next to a moving train is unnerving and exhilarating. We both had to look away to suppress a feeling of vertigo. Jasper and Baxter were on the other side of the tracks and had similar sensations. What a huge and powerful force! The train was maybe 100 cars long. After it passed we put our ears to the rails and listened to it grind away for a long after the sound was imperceptible to a passerby.I have a favorite web comic that claims a train is just a machine that grabs the earth by a set of rails and turns the globe beneath it until the desired location is nearby. Maybe  hiking the AT is a similar phenomenon. Each step pushes the globe a little bit beneath us, pulling Katahdin a little closer bit-by-bit. It seems like an awfully big globe tonight.