Date: 2009-08-24
To: Post Hike #5
Miles today: 0.0

OG notesI said we would continue to post journal entries to describe our after trail life. I fell right back into our real world hard and quickly. I received a call asking me if I would come back to work and help out. They had a number of people out due to vacations, and the person who would normally fill the shortages hurt her back and is out of work for a while. I went back to work three weeks ago and I've been working ever since. We had planned to visit Maine the last week of August before the call, so I made myself unavailable these next two weeks. So here we are in Maine where many of our hiking friends currently are hiking. We drove straight to Rangeley, which is where we think they are. After we arrived last night we visited The Gull Pond Lodge, which is one of the places hikers stay here in Rangeley. We found Tinman, he's a fellow we both admire and enjoy being with. He brought us up on where he thought some of our other friends might be. He could guess where they! were by the shelter register entries. Another faster hiker named Topofgothic was also there and he was able to bring us up to date on other friends that he passed a few days ago.Fast forward to Monday, our second day in Maine. We went out to the trailhead that comes out on Route 4 to Rangeley. We met Daddy Longlegs here and did a little trail magic for him. He also had additional info on friends, so we narrowed down things a little more. We moved to another trailhead which is 8 hiking miles south, on Route 17, hoping to see Braid, one of our friends. While we were there a young fellow named Eisenhour came out limping from a bad knee. After staying at the trailhead giving out soda, oranges, and energy bars, we decided Braid wasn't going to go by here today. At that time Eisenhour decided he needed to get off the trail for a while and asked if we would drive him to Andover, ME. It was about a half hour ride there. We dropped him off at the Pine Ellis Hostel, and found that Braid was at that hostel last night. Eisenhour is going to wait there a few days and see if the knee improves then decide if he can go on. While in Andover we stopped at "The Cabin" to say hello. The Cabin is one of the nicer hostels on the AT and I wanted to show it to C6. We had a nice conversation with Marge (Honey) and she gave us a tour of the hostel. As an alumnus of their place we should be able to stay with them next year when we hike through.We drove back to the trailhead on route 17 and met three more hikers. We gave out more sodas, oranges, Oreos, and energy bars. It is so nice to give back to other hikers because we know how nice it is to receive it. We had a great conversation with them and then moved on back to Rangeley where we checked into the Saddleback Inn again for a second night. We had planned to move on to Stratton and then Caratunk tonight but we had accomplished so much here that we decided to stay. We're hoping to meet Braid tomorrow morning if all goes well. The rooms on either side of us are full of thru hikers. One of the hikers is Mississippi who we hiked with for a long time, it was great to see him. Also in this group was Ewok and Shorty who we had met while we were hiking. We feel like we are still accepted as one of them even though we no longer are. Well off to bed. We are planning an early rise so that we can be at the trailhead in time to see Braid. C6 notesWe are in Rangeley, Maine, tonight. We will be meeting our son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons, Tyler and Steven, near Boothbay Harbor, ME, on Thursday, so we decided to come to Maine a couple days early and try to meet up with some of our hiking friends. We stopped in Rangeley last night and saw "Tinman" at the local hostel. He's a Canadian we last saw in Port Clinton, PA, with his hiking partner, Gaspard. Gaspard had gone home for a wedding this past weekend, so we didn't see him here in Rangeley, but we were thrilled to see Tinman.Today we went to where the AT crosses Route 4, and immediately met "Daddy Long Legs," a thru-hiker who just happened to get there at the same time as we parked. We enjoyed chatting with him and offered him sodas, oranges, and cookies. We asked about Braid, Neal, and others we had hiked with. He only knew Braid, but last saw him 2 days ago. So we then went to where route 17 intersects with the AT and sat there for about 3 hours. Didn't see Braid, but we did meet a section hiker who said he saw Braid even farther behind. We took the section hiker to Andover (he's having trouble with a knee and wanted to go back to a hostel in Andover), and found out Braid spent last night in that hostel. So we narrowed down Braid's location to probably the last shelter, 5 miles South on the AT from Route 17 tonight. We plan to go back to Rte 17 early tomorrow and hope to see him as he gets there. It's been a fun two days because the thru-hikers we've met treat us like thru-hikers once they find out who we are and that we were thru-hikng until a month ago. It feels good.When we checked into the Inn tonight we discovered that "Mississippi" (another guy we had seen often while we were hiking) was in the room next to ours. He's with a group that plans to try and summit on 09-09-09. It was nice to visit with him.Old Goat & Check Six