Date: 2009-08-05
From: Abol Bridge

To: Rainbow Stream Lean-to
Miles today: 15.0
Weather: broken clouds

III. Report: Physically, I¢m off the trail and at home. This report is for July 23.I would have preferred hiking a bit further yesterday, as the Hurd Brook Lean-to was only a short distance into the wilderness. However, it was still early in this trek, we had covered nearly 10 miles and it was raining again for a period. I got up early today and left SOBO. Shortly after passing the Abol Bridge, I came across the warning sign about the ¢100 mile wilderness¢. Then, I began hiking thru the Maine bogs, which isn¢t very enjoyable. The territory is very marsh-like, probably 100% humidity, very dark and no air movement, accompanied by swarms of mosquitos. FB and TNT soon caught up with me and we arrived shortly at the Hurd Lean-to, to find it very overcrowded. Here is where we met Swamp Cricket, Quash, Infomaniac, and Etchasketch. We hiked a bit further to the Rainbow Ledges, where we found wild blueberries, and were soon joined again by Bugsy and BG who were NOBO section hikers. We took some photos and then continued hiking to the Rainbow Stream Lean-to, a daily hike of 15 miles. This shelter was quite pretty, with a large river in front and it was even more crowded than the previous shelter. We pitched our tents in the campsite area, fixed dinner and retired for the night. I was feeling very good physically, having completed a hard 10.6 mile summit, a fair 10 mile hike and then today¢s 15 miler. My knee was not causing any significant difficulty and we were well on our way into the 100 mile wilderness.IV Tic¢s Q for the readers: How old is my toothbrush?V. PODI was interested in attending the University of Texas ever since I can remember. There was a brief thought about attending a service academy; however, my eyesight wouldn¢t pass the physical requirements of the time. I was in the newly created aerospace engineering department and Air Force ROTC; however, my real major was probably UT football games. I went to every OU game in Dallas, and even made some away games in Arkansas and Los Angeles. My scholastic achievements were remarkable solely in the fact that I graduated. This was an interesting time to be at UT: there was the selective service draft in place, the Students for a Democratic Society were leading active anti-war protests, hippies and liberal arts college was jousting against the engineers and conservatives, and everyone was against the lawyers. I was a member of the AF Orange Wings Drill Team (soon disbanded to the team¢s overall low grade point average) and also active in the Praetorian Guard, a pseudo-social group for the ROTC cadets. I met Libra Lady in my second year and we were steady dates from then on. This period culminated in 1969, when LL and I were married, we both graduated from UT, I was commissioned a 2nd LT in the USAF and we were off for our first assignment.POD: Dale Scoggins was my roommate for most of my college days. We had a lot of common interests. His dad was literally a dam superintendent, at Falcon Dam in the Rio Grande Valley. I remember several trips to the valley where we hunted birds and fished at Falcon Lake. Dale was my best man at our wedding. After graduation, he joined the Air Force and became a C-130 pilot, ¢haulin trash¢ all over the world. He then left the AF and settled down into the real estate business in Abilene, TX.