Date: 2008-09-07
To: Stratton, ME
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Its Nate here and Im just enjoying our "Zero" here in Stratton Maine. We just came out of a 70 mile stretch from Monson and we had a great time especially with our sister Ruth joining us. A couple highlights from the trip: Our second morning, we went to Harrison Camps which is a house in the middle of the trail where a guy serves breakfast to thru-hikers. HIs specailty is the Lumber Jack breakfast which is 12 pancakes loaded with blueberries rasberries and apples, sausage, eggs, coffee, a glass of milk, and a glass of orange juice. It was a huge upgrade from out usual breakfast of instant oatmeal and water.On Thursday, we stopped for dinner around 5ish because we found this awesome beach on this lake and we enjoyed our hot meal looking at a really nice sunset. We had about 2 miles left until we reached our planned lean-to which was right before the Bigelow Mountain range. As we were hiking, it was getting dark so we put on our headlamps and then we all thought it would be a great idea to skip our planned lean-to and hike up following mountain and sleep on top. So we kept on hiking into the night up this mountain and we got to the top around 10. We laid out our mats and sleepingbags and went to bed to the chilly winds on top under the bright stars.Our final day on the trail before Stratton, we camped about 2 miles from the road going into town. I was sent ahead into town to call our parents to tell them where and when to come up and resupply us. Phil and Ruth stayed back to set up camp. I had my first hitchhiking experience which was fun. I stood on the side of the highway for about 20 minutes holding up my thumb with a smile on my face trying to look as innocent and nice as possible...Nothing. I got a couple waves from drives and even a honk but no one was willing to stop. Finally, an older couple came out of the woods and joined me in my atenmtp to get a ride into town and within 1 minute, we got picked up in the back of a truck.Hmmmm...there must be something in my hiker appearance that doesnt help my hitchhiking pickup rate. I got into town and called my parents and also picked up some pizza, fruit, drinks, and some icecream to have a nice final dinner on the trail. When I finally made it to the trail and back into our camp sight, it was dark by then and I saw two people with headlamps setting up a tent. Thinking it was Ruth and Phil, I jumped out the woods and yelled, "someone order a pizza!" in a stupid deliveryboy voice. Well I thought it was a pretty creative joke until I realized it wasnt phil or ruth. Nope...two complete strangers who certainly did not order a pizza. So that was pretty embarrasing and I felt bad taunting them with a large hot pizza loaded with toppings only to eat it front of their face as they sat with us in the open area the campsite had. Never the less, the pizza was amazing and we did get to share some icecream with the two other hikers to make up for the initial taunting.Well, we just ordered some pizza and are about to sit down to watch the pats game in this little Straton Motel. We are heading out right after the game for another big week of lots of miles and mountains. See you in Gorham for our next day off.         -Nate