Day 101: Another Short Day

June 16: Amanda dropped me off on the trail early in the morning when the chance of rain was minimized. Weather forecasts predicted increasingly unpleasant skies as the day progressed, so I wanted to get as much of it done as early as possible in the hopes of avoiding the worst of it. I largely succeeded. =)

Today I planned to hike a smidgen over 8 miles and decided once again to leave my pack behind. I could hike 8 miles without a pack. Three, or maybe four hours if the trail is particularly challenging. I don't need to stupid pack!

The only thru-hiker I saw today was Beetle, a hiker from Germany. He didn't recognize me as a thru-hiker at first which is understandable since I was carrying no pack at all, but he was familiar with my register entries (my bright green stamp tends to make my entries stand out!) so he knew I was legit. *nodding* =)

While I was hiking, I asked Amanda to mail my laptop ahead on the trail. Normally I'd have it shipped ahead just before I got back on the trail again, but Amanda had to leave very early in the morning the next day and the post office wouldn't be open then and I wasn't sure if it would be open by the time I finished the day's hiking. So her mission was to ship the laptop ahead for me while the post office was open. I definitely didn't want to hike with it on my back!

The hike was largely uneventful and Amanda picked me up at our schedule rendezvous. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working on Amanda's laptop to get more blog posts written up. Amanda had to occupy her time reading books and watching television since I had temporarily confiscated her laptop. =)

For dinner, we walked a short ways down the road to an Italian restaurant. The waitress asked us if we were from "the city." Amanda was hugely amused about that. "New York City?! Ha!!!!" I guess we it was obvious we didn't live locally, though. When the waitress found out I was thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, she was absolutely fascinated with it even going so far as to tell the other employees about me. It was like she'd never seen a thru-hiker before! Which, admittedly, this restaurant was so far off the trail its unlikely most thru-hikers would ever eat here, but surely she'd cross paths occasionally with one. They're everywhere! =)

And that was the end of another day....

He's trying to get to Katahdin too and wanted some help, but I decided to leave him on his own. Good luck, though!

Amanda strikes again! =) Unfortunately, it started pouring buckets of rain about 15 minutes after I finished the day's hiking here so I'm probably the only person who ever saw this! Glad I got the photo! =)