Date: 2008-07-19
From: Glencliff, NH

To: Gorham, NH
Miles today: 482.0
Weather: fog

Guess who's in New Hampshire? Bunz -n- Roses! We finally made it out of Vermont and we're going to take on the infamous White Mountains tomorrow. We've been continuing to have a fabulous time with our friends Twiggy, Spoc and Tupperware and our friend Hearts is actually meeting us tomorrow and we'll all be trucking it to Katahdin together. Let's see, reflections on the last few miles...We stayed one more night in Bennington after my last entry and managed to pull off the best stealth camp of all time. Since our friend Hearts was still in the hospital, and we didn't have a place to stay that included air conditioning, Spoc and Tupperware hatched an ingenius plan. They went to the "sleep center" wing of the hospital and badgered the guy on duty to see if they needed any volunteers for sleep experiments. Unfortunately, they did not have any room to put up five hikers for a sleep study, but the guy did mention that people often shack up in the waiting rooms for the night. We got our gear together and found a mostly empty waiting room, complete with a bathroom and convenient coke machine and set up camp. Spoc even scored us some pillows from the Sleep Center. It was a pretty amazing night of sleep. After all, it came after one of the worst sleep experiences on the trail, leading me to our next story... While in Manchester Center, we all rented a motel room (there were 7 of us) at the Red Sled Motel just out of town. Spoc negotiated a deal with the proprietor and paid the guy in cash for the extra hikers. When we (Bunz, Tup, Root and I) showed up (Spoc, Twiggy and Cuda were already there) the manager pounds on the door and then barges in and SCREAMS at us that 3 people have to get out immediately. We took a minute to regroup after the intrusion and decided that we would all head out, right after Spoc got a refund. Well, Spoc starts to walk down towards the office and the manager's son bumps into him as he is strapping on a holster carrying a 44 Magnum. That's right, the manager's 15 year old son is carrying a loaded handgun into the encounter. Well needless to say, Spoc does not get his money back and Bunz, Tup and I end up sleeping in the gazebo out back. The moral of the story: Do not stay at the Red Sled in Manchester Center. You'd be better off sleeping sitting up in a privy.All was not lost though, we made it out of Vermont unscathed and got to New Hampshire in good spirits. Hanover was a bit of a let-down, as they do not have very many hiker oriented services, but we got a cheap motel out of town and Bunz figured out a way to score free doughnuts from Dunkin' Donuts. All he had to do was go into DD a little bit before closing and ask if he could snag a dozen before they throw them away. He met up with the manager behind the store right after they closed and picked them up. As simple as that. It worked so well that Spoc did it again the next night. Now we're at an awesome little hostel in Glencliff, NH and we will be hitting Mt. Moosiluke first thing in the morning. I don't think we'll have a lot of options to access the internet before we hit Gorham, but don't think that we quit! Come hell or high water, we're getting to Maine!!