Date: 2008-10-01
From: Millinocket, ME

To: Millinocket, ME
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Oh, the luxury of a bed, heater, flushing toilet, no alarm, and who even cares what it¢s doing outside right? But the best¢¦best of all? No cold wet stinky hiking clothes, wet socks or squishy shoes to put on in cold wet weather.   That¢s both of our favorites this morning. We both actually had a hard time sleeping last nite. No bed is as comfortable as our hammocks! (that one is for Persistent!). Actually, I think it was that we spent 11 days eating pretty bland and small portions of trail food, then got to town and at least I pigged out as if it were my last meal. I also had a dream that I was fording a river that was waist deep, only I was walking up the river against the current and just couldn¢t get to where I needed to go. We woke up at 9 a.m., but this room rocks because it¢s very dark and I had no idea it was even daylight out. I made us some coffee and served a fancy breakfast of Fruity Pebbles in a hotel room coffee cup with milk. Hey¢¦I know how to make a person feel special right?We didn¢t rush to do a darn thing today. My pack was exploded all over the place, so my plan was to pack it back up, go over to the hostel and pay Ole¢ Man for our ride into town, and retrieve Karen¢s camera, which we left in his truck. I also emailed Persistent to let her know what was going on and to see if she¢d be willing (one last time) to deal with my new set of pictures. I swear, she¢s a saint¢¦she was actually excited to do it! I also decided to go ahead and make a reservation at Katahdin Stream Campsite, which is right at the base of Mt. Katahdin and is a reservation only campsite. There¢s another place for long distance hikers to stay at called The Birches, which is a lean-to that is near this campsite, but honestly, I¢d rather just know I have a campsite, and it¢s for a minimum of 2 people, so Karen can meet me there on the 6th and camp with me. I called and had no problem getting a site. The woman said there were several sites available still.   Out of curiosity, I wondered what today¢s totally cloudy and gross looking day would be class-wise on Katahdin. The woman told me a Class II day, so I¢m optimistic I¢ll at least have that on the 7th. We decided to go ahead and go over to the Appalachian Trail Lodge, so we drove over and went inside the bunkhouse. Wow, they¢ve done great things with this place. They remodeled it when they first got it and it¢s quite nice, with several private rooms. It¢s a clean place too.We poked around till we found Ole¢ Man and his wife Navigator, who was the person who helped take vitals and stuff when Persistent and I were down at the Hiker Hostel the day before we started our hikes last year. If you recall, John, a professor, was doing a study on the affects a thru-hike has on the body. So cool to see them again. They invited us into their home and I got some cat therapy! 10 month old Yogi is a GREAT energetic spunky kitty who loves to play. I wore him out though, and had him jumping straight up in the air at my hand. Great cat.We sat and talked with Ole¢ Man and Navigator for a good 30 minutes, but then they had to attend to some people who showed up. It was wonderful talking with them though. They are perfect for doing what they¢re doing.So I asked them about this great artwork hanging in their caf©. It was these extremely comical drawings of different aspects of hiking the AT. They told me they were all done by a thru-hiker named Postcard, and for any of you who want some great stuff (I¢m going to buy some of his stuff, because you can tell he¢s hiked the whole trail to portray it this way), he just opened a website: http://www.theartfulhiker.com/gallery.htmlIf you click on the Appalachian Trail, it shows you every single drawing¢¦my personal favorite is #60. It¢s such great stuff. I¢d heard about this guy, that instead of journaling, he was drawing something every single day out there during his hike. Wow, what a talent!! I hope Karen (who collects art) is ready to move her stuff over so I can now decorate our home with this stuff! LOLSo we departed and went thru McDonald¢s for lunch¢¦I¢m craving protein like crazy. Not that McDonald¢s is actually real meat, but I love those little hamburgers. We came back to the room and I took care of some emailing, and got my gear all packed back up. It¢s the last time I¢ll pack my pack in a town, the last time I wash everything, the last time I get it ready to go. Wow, can¢t believe it. In the course of talking with Persistent, she asked if I was going to Talkerman¢s ¢AT Debriefing.¢ At first Karen and I were going to make a side trip to Cape Cod, but now we¢ve decided we¢d rather go to Talkerman¢s thing, so I mentioned this to Persistent who is trying to pull off coming out for it too!!! As of now, I don¢t know if she¢ll be there, but folks, do you KNOW how EXCITED I¢d be if I got to see her!!? I haven¢t seen her since she left me in Damascus when I hurt my foot last summer!!! Oh man, it would be so awesome to have her there to celebrate with¢¦seriously. So I¢m crossing my fingers she can work a miracle and get some time off work. Please please please!!!!!!The rest of the evening was spent watching the tube, mindless..non-thinking television. Man, it really does rot the brain doesn¢t it? How many hours do we spend sitting in front of this thing? So I¢m going to go fetch dinner from a sub place. I¢m hungry again. I¢m excited to resupply for my last leg tomorrow, because I¢m going to try to actually be creative and take some good and special food with me. I¢m not the most creative, so we¢ll see what happens. Sure wish I could take some ice cream with me.Karen¢s knee is feeling a bit better, but she stayed off it today and put flex-all on it. I think it will be fine with rest. It better be¢¦it¢s snowboarding season soon! LOL So one more day of dodging potentially rainy weather and then out again. I¢m so excited I can¢t stand it man. I am actually going to FINISH!!!!!! It¢s raining like cats and dogs out there right now.~Certain