Date: 2011-08-06
From: (121) Sugarloaf Mt

To: (122) Stratton, ME. Tom's Cabin.
Miles today: 10.6
Weather: overcast clouds

I woke today to a red sunset penetrating through the cracks of the surrounding pine forest. The wetness of the ground led me to believe that it had rained, but I had stayed dry under my tarp and slept through it. By 6am I was up and hiking, determined to reach the post office in Stratton before it closed at 11:30am. It was by no means an easy hike, particularly going up Stratton Mountain, but by 10:40 I had completed my ten miles and reached the trailhead at Rout 27, which enters the town of Stratton 5 miles to the West. With only 20 minutes to spare, I tried desperately to hitch, but with no luck. I considered running the distance, but determined that I would have to average 6 miles per hour up and down roads and with my pack on, and thus doubted I would make it to the post office in time, especially having just finished my strenuous hike. Finally I called the town¢s Hostel to see if they would come get me, and as I was talking a man named Tom Dickey pulled over in his truck (I always get picked up after I have given up), and offered me a ride in the passenger¢s seat, so long as I didn¢t mind sharing it with his dog Max (I didn¢t). Tom was a great guy who not only dropped me off at the post office with time to spare, but also offered to let me stay at his place for free. I very much wanted to accept his offer, but I had already promised (by phone) to meet Tridub at the Hostel, and had already made my hostel reservations, so I had to decline, though I did except Tom¢s card in case I changed my mind.At the post office, and after pushing Tom¢s dog off of my lap, I went inside and mailed home my finished trail journal, large tube of tooth paste I had used to fill a smaller one, some chargers, spare batteries, and a length of tarp rope. This was all done with the intention of dropping even more weight for another 50 mile attempt through whatever flat stretch might remain on the AT.After buying a pint of Boston Cr me Ben and Jerry¢s ice cream and a 1 liter of Mountain Dew (Lunch of champions), I sat down on a picnic table to feast and wait for the hostel shuttle to pick me up (The hostel was half a mile away, and I didn¢t feel like humping it). While sitting I looked up and saw a figure from the past; it was Hand-Me-Down walking towards me! I had not seen him since German Sheppard and I had left him and his ¢Woman¢ behind in Palmerton Pennsylvania. He and I had been good friends, and we wasted no time in catching up.I sat with Hand-Me-Down for a good hour waiting for the hostel shuttle, but it never arrived (Tridub didn¢t expect to make it to town until that night anyway). Hand-Me-Down was about to leave, so I told him about Tom Dickey¢s offer and asked him if he wanted to see if the two of us could stay there for free. Hand-Me-Down was all for it so I pulled out Tom¢s card and gave him a call.Tom Dickey was retired after a career as an officer in the United States Coast Guard. Having grown up in Maine, Tom purchased a cabin outside of Stratton where he lives for a few months a year taking it easy and helping out thru hikers on their journey. As Hand-Me-Down and I rode shotgun in Tom¢s truck down the open roads of Maine (His dog Max sitting on his lap while he tried to drive), Tom told us about Maine and that by road we were only 30 miles or so from the Canadian Border! It was a real wake-up call of how far we had hiked across the country. As I looked out the window, I saw that every telephone pole we passed had an American Flag hanging off of it. I asked Tom about them, and he said that in Maine you can donate money to have a flag put up. I looked down the road, and the flags were endless. It said a lot about the people of Maine.Tom was extremely generous to us. He took us to a viewpoint and showed us the Bigelow Mountains where we would be hiking next, as well as Mount Katahdin and the end of the trail, far away in the distance (over a hundred miles by trail, much less as a straight line). At his cabin he gave us our own beds, collected our clothes to wash while giving us some of his to wear (I picked out a shirt that said ¢Retired: Earned it, living it, loving it¢, and I couldn¢t have agreed more), let us use his shower, the internet on his laptop, television, and essentially shared his home with us as though it was ours (He even told us that if we still needed anything we could borrow his truck to drive into town!). Tom bought us burgers for lunch, which I cooked on his porch grill (They turned out surprisingly well considering I can barely make a bowl of cereal without spilling half the box). Hand-Me-Down and I were completely overwhelmed, as Tom¢s hospitality was above and beyond anything we could have asked for.While sitting on the porch eating burgers and sipping soda, I complained to Tom that I had been sick the past couple of days (today being the worst), and that it felt an awful lot like Lyme disease had. Tom told me that he had had Lyme disease as well, and that he had been medicated for two months, four times a day (Considerably more than my twice a day for three weeks), and that he had seen an actual tick doctor. Tom¢s sister turned out to be an expert of sorts on Lyme, so we called her and told her my symptoms and how long it had been since I finished my meds, and she told me that chances were I had been under-medicated and that I still had Lyme. It was tough to tell if I did or not because I had been hiking, hence I always hurt, but one thing for sure was that I kept getting sicker, and that I was getting sick in the exact same way (Fever symptoms like sore throat, headache towards the front of my head, sore joints, etc).I began to realize how lucky I was that Tom had been the one to pick me up and drive me into town, because without someone like him on my side, I don¢t know what I would have done to get better again. The nearest hospital was an hour away, and Tom, being unbelievably helpful, offered to drive me there, but I felt guilty asking him for more than he had already given. In the end (after Tom and I did some brainstorming) I called my mom and had her call my doctor to write me another prescription of doxycycline to the nearest pharmacy in Maine (also an hour away, that¢s ¢Close¢ in Maine). Tom gave me the number for the pharmacy, so I called them and gave them all of my personal and billing information. After this, Tom called a friend of his who worked near the pharmacy and asked him if he would pick up my prescription on his way back home and drop it off at Tom¢s Cabin. Once again the trail had proved to me that everything works out in the end, and that the world is in fact good, no exceptions. I got meds prescribed by a doctor in Maryland to a pharmacy in Maine which was an hour away brought to me by a guy who works in the area, all thanks to Tom who just happened to pick me up along RT 27, when I wasn¢t even trying to hitch as I had given up trying. I had my meds, before the day¢s end, and I hadn¢t even left the room. To call it trail magic doesn¢t do it justice. While waiting for my meds to arrive, Tom offered to let Hand-Me-Down and I ride his ATV (four-wheeler) around the trails near his house (Can¢t let the Lymes get me down!). I had a blast zipping around through the backcountry of Maine, and couldn¢t help but marvel at my good fortune. Imagine, after all those days of rain and hiking, racing down the road on a four-wheeler and so far from home¢¦That night Tom made supper for Hand-Me-Down and I. We had chicken, corn on the cob, potatoes, peas, and more. It was a tasty end to a terrific day. Thanks Tom, you are one in a million. Or rather, one in 14 states, 2181 miles, and over 6 million steps.