Date: 2005-08-21
From: East Flagstaff Road

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Raining like hell. We¢re getting really pampered and wasted here, so Tinkerbell and I decided to take another zero day. Two zeros in three days in Stratton which is okay by me because, I talked to Bob. He can¢t come to get me until the fifth of September and that means that I have about 15 days to do 170 miles. So, I¢m either going to get there early, summit Katahdin, and end up having to blow time in town or find a place to camp or blow time along the Trail. Take my time; run short miles; or stay in towns; or whatever. Time it so I don¢t have to get creative about what to do when I get there and get finished. As I mentioned, yesterday we took a zero day in Stratton. That's the second 'zero' in 3 days. I had asked Tinkerbell to make a decision for us as to what he wanted us to do. It was raining. They were calling for rain all day the next day. He said that he wanted to walk out in the rain, get out early in the morning, get a 6:15 shuttle out to East Flagstaff and start running north. I went ahead and packed up my backpack, got everything 100% ready, woke up at 5:30 in the morning and took my pack outside, put on my gaiters and set up my trekking poles. Tinkerbell came out and said, " You know what? Today is a good day for a zero day." So we ended up staying in town. Apparently, so did alot of other hikers. The Stratton Motel, as well as other places in town, started filling up really quickly. The only problem with taking a zero day is, the commitment that the Stratton Motel has with the road workers that stay there during the week. There was no room there for us, and Don offered to put us up at his other place, The Maine Roadhouse. Tinkerbell really didn't want to do that, so he elected to jump over and stay at the White Wolf Inn. I was going to do it with him, but then I talked to Don some more. I decided that I was going to stick with Don, mainly because he had treated us so well. He had done right by us, and I had heard enough bad things along the Trail, before we got to Stratton, about how hikers were not getting treated well at the White Wolf Inn that I decided not to give them my business.Regardless, the town was overpacked with hikers. A bunch of people that I knew had caught up, Naked Sun, Jersey Fresh, Razz and Swifty. There were also a bunch of section hikers and day hikers, there were people wearing packs everywhere. I hung around town, I ate well, had breakfast twice, got pizza from next door. I tried to do various things that I had been neglecting, like catching up on journals and writing postcards. Later in the afternoon, I went over to the Maine Roadhouse. Don gave me the absolute best room in the place. It was a really nice place, for the same rate he had been charging us all along, so I felt really lucky, like I was the one getting the good end of the deal all the way around. I realized that after I loaned Tinkerbell and Jersey Fresh some money, I was now out of cash. At 8:30 pm, Jersey Fresh, Naked Sun and myself asked Susan if she would take us to the ATM at Rangeley. We got our cash there.Warren Doyle's group showed up yesterday at the Stratton. Being how everything was already packed, Warren and his wife actually ended up at the Maine Roadhouse in a room there. I saw them all this morning. I also saw Amy Lam. I don't know her Trail name yet. I don't know if I mentioned this but I met her back at The Cabin in Andover. She has my same exact last name, Lam, a Chinese name. I'm looking forward to meeting her and talking to her. When I first met Amy, she asked me if I knew how to write my last name in Chinese and what it meant. I said, "No" so, she showed me. She put one symbol down and said, "This is a symbol for a tree." She then put two of them down, 2 trees. That's how my last name is written in Chinese, and it also signifies trees, as in the woods and the forest, which I thought was pretty cool. Pretty significant considering what I'm doing.That¢s it for the day.