Date: 2013-10-08
To: The Trip Home
Miles today: 0.0

When we got up on Monday morning, it was still raining. We'd planned to hang out with the gang since they were zeroing, but the AT Lodge was filling up. There were no private rooms available and only two bunkroom beds left open. We couldn't in good conscience take beds from hikers that undoubtedly would be trying to escape the rain. Our other option was to get a room in hotel across town, but that kind of defeated the purpose of being close by to get to hangout with everyone. So we decided we'd say our good-byes. It's weird because you know this moment is coming, but when it does actually arrive it's so sudden and abrupt. One moment your are sitting around a breakfast table, and the next you are sitting in the passenger seat of a car that's driving away. For a trek that's taken almost 7 months to complete at foot speed, the transition to regular life seemed to be happening at light speed. One minute I'm a thru-hiker, and the very next I'm a former thru-hiker. It felt like I went from being a rock star to a has-been. It made me wonder if this is in some way is what Olympic-level athletes must feel like when they retire, what am I supposed do now?I pulled out the road map that we'd just purchased at the gas station. We wanted to meander our way back to Watertown. I seemed that the shortest and best meandering route retraced and zig-zagged over the AT until about Rutland, VT. I checked my phone and saw that Beerdra was in Monson. I sent her a message to see if she was around, and Tom graciously aimed the car in that direction. As we drove along the road, I noticed all the turn offs for dirt roads with familiar names- Jo-Mary Rd, Kokadjo-B Pond Rd, Katahdin Ironworks Rd. I did the calculations in my head. It had taken me some many days to reach this road, and so many days to reach that road, and so on. And yet in a car, it took us less than a hour to reach Monson from Millinocket. It had taken me about a week in a half to walk the same distance. It felt as if my work was being unwoven,and at such a rapid, callous pace. The weather seemed to mirror my mood, a little grey, a little sad.We headed to Shaws and found Beerdra dressed in a snazzy purple sweater and camo shorts- ah, hiker hostel clothes. It was so great to see her smiling face again. It eased the sorrow in my heart. She doesn't live too far from us in NY, so we made plans to reunite in a couple of weeks. We headed on with the rain pounding the windshield. As sad as I was to be done hiking, I was oh-so grateful not to have to contend with this weather. We continued down the road with me jamming my finger against my window every time we passed an AT-crossing, with me exclaiming I crossed here X-amount of days ago. The "days" turned to "weeks", and by night fall, we were pulling into Gorham, NH. What took us 4 hrs to drive had taken me 6+ weeks to hike. As we passed White Mountains Lodge & Hostel and I remembered sitting up in my room staring out of the window while talking on the phone with Tom. And here I am, sitting in the car with Tom staring out of the window talking about White House Lodge & Hostel. It all felt like a dream that was zooming past me in rewind. We got a room at a hotel downtown, and we walked a half-mile to a restaurant. My feet an ankles hurt, but I was itching to move. We had dinner and chatted, and suddenly I felt exhausted. Gosh, it must be at least 10:00 pm I thought. I looked at my watch, it was 7:10 pm. Hiker midnight still seemed to apply. The next morning, we got up and had coffee and breakfast at a local coffee shop. The we decided to try to drive to the top of Mt. Washington. The clouds hung low overhead, so I wasn't sure there would be much to see, but I wanted Tom to experience as much of the AT as I could finagle. Also, I just didn't want all of this to be over. When we got to the entrance, we were told that due to high winds and low temperatures (4 F with windchill) the road was only open for the first four miles. It didn't seem like much, but we were willing to take what we could get. Around mile 2, we saw a sign for the AT-crossing. I'll be honest, at first I didn't remember it or recognize the crossing. Which was weird. But once we parked, I realized that I was all turned around. The memory flooded back to me all at once. Hobo and I were hiking together and we were discussing women's gymnastics. In fact, I had copped a squat just behind a rock and continued to chatter away which Hobo had found amusing. Tom and I decided to walk up the trail to an overlook. I wanted so much to be hiking. I couldn't believe how much I missed it already. Even with my aching feet and ankles, I yearned to feel the trail under my feet again. Less than 48 hrs from completing my thru-hike, I was already starting to plot my next adventure. Perhaps the PCT is in our future afterall! We drove up the remaining 2 miles, and I have to say, the wind was pretty intense. We got up into the alpine zone before we were forced to turn around. We got out and walked around. We stood and braced ourselves against the wind gusts. As before, sheets of clouds whipped around us, allowing us glimpses of the landscape just beyond. I thought back to a conversation I'd had with Hobo, Tough Cookie and Pressure D. At the time, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by the Whites, and I proclaimed that I had no desire to EVER hike in the White Mountains again. Period. They all laughed and said that it was kind of like a woman in labor vowing she'll never have more children. They assured me that when it was over I'd probably feel differently. They were right. We headed down the mountain and continued our travels westward. The weather improved and traffic increased. There were lots of people out and about to see the fall foliage. We worked our way across New Hampshire and into Vermont. We pulled into Rutland and stopped in for a quick coffee to-go at the Yellow Deli. I'd heard a lot about it from other hikers on the trail, but I hadn't had a chance to see if for myself on my first pass through. Then we headed towards Castleton and Joanne & Ed's house. I wanted to see Joanne & Patty again and to meet Ed- he'd been out of town when I'd passed through before. And I wanted Tom to meet everyone. It was such a lovely visit. Joanne & Ed gave me a book they had found at a book sale. It was a book published in 1972 by National Geographic titled simply "The Appalachian Trail." I'd seen only one of these before at the Jail House hostel in Palmerton, PA. That book had been in tatters, this one is pristine. It's a gift that I will treasure forever. Thank you, Joanne and Ed.We set off early the next morning after breakfast. We crossed the border into New York and worked our way through the Adirondacks. We managed to make it home a little after noon. The AT is only 5 hours from our house from its closest point. That seemed impossible. We unloaded our things, and soon the guest bedroom was strewn with my hiking gear (only yesterday, almost 3 weeks later, did I finally get it all away). I walked around the house, our home. Everything was just how I had left it, if only covered in a fine layer of dust and a few spider webs. I thought about the last time I had been in the house. I was a ball of anxiety and excitement. I was headed off on a great adventure that had yet to be written. I had high hopes but honestly no idea how it would all turn out. And now I was back. And now I knew how the story ended. It took me two days before I was ready be remotely social. I still needed to digest it all.