Day 142: Apples to Oranges

July 27: We woke in the morning to clear, beautiful blue skies! I had slightly less than 10 miles to get into Rangeley--my next resupply point along the trail. And overall, the trail wasn't especially bad. It was mostly downhill, not particularly steep or rocky. Mud... there was still a large amount of mud, but all things considered, a generally easy day of walking. Or at least easier than usual at this point.

It was a beautiful morning!

The trail comes out on highway 4, about nine miles east of Rangeley. I definitely had no intention of walking that far into town, so I walked across the street to hitch a ride. Immediately, I saw two cars coming up and I stuck out my thumb. The first car flew by without slowing down, but the second car stopped. I had hitched a ride in about five seconds flat. That might be a new record for me!

I had him drop me off at the Farmhouse Inn, which had bunkrooms available for hikers. Not sure exactly when I'd arrive, I had my laptop mailed directly here rather than the post office so I was pretty committed to staying at the Farmhouse Inn when I got into town, but it was a nice little place! =)

I was surprised when I bumped into Bionic Woman there--I hadn't seen here since Georgia! Lest you've forgotten, she's the one-legged woman who's hiking the trail. She told me that she had made it north as far as Glasgow before jumping ahead to Katahdin and started hiking southbound. She knew she wouldn't finish the trail before Katahdin closed so turned her hike into a flip-flop. I was thrilled to see that she was still hiking the trail since I'd heard nothing about her since Georgia. (Later, I would learn that she finally finished her thru-hike the last week of December! She persisted and did succeed in making it the entire distance! Good for her!)

Little Swift River Pond--and look! A canoe! I passed by it, though, anxious to get into Rangeley.

In the late afternoon, I played a rousing game of Apples to Apples with several of the other hikers: Tropical, Mouse, Home Wrecker and Disco. I wouldn't normally bother to mention anything as mundane as a game of Apples to Apples, but one particular round was so strange, bizarre and hilariously funny, I couldn't help myself. =)

For those of you not familiar with the game, one person is the "judge" and lays down a card with an adjective on it. Everyone else has been dealt 7 cards with nouns, and they're supposed to throw out a card that they feel best describes the adjective. Then the judge picks their favorite and the person who threw out that card wins the round. It's an incredibly simple and fast-paced game and, in my opinion, is the absolute best game ever invented for playing with large groups of people. It moves fast and everyone gets to play every round. None of that "waiting for your turn" stuff.

Anyhow, the adjective that was thrown out was "spunky." (The synomyms on the card included perky, lively and spirited.) Looking through my hand, I had absolutely nothing that I'd consider "spunky." I did have a few cards I was anxious to get rid of, however, and one of them could perhaps be considered "spunky" in a sick and twisted way.... So I played it, face-down so nobody else could see it. When everyone had played their cards, we flipped all of the nouns face-up.

* Amputations
* Funerals
* Jack the Ripper
* Grave Robbers

OMG, that has to the funniest round I've ever heard of! To describe spunky?! That every one of us played "dark" cards about death and mutilations to describe spunky?! No way we could have planned it that way since we had all played our cards face-down. None of us knew what the others were playing. A complete surprise to all of us!

If you're curious, I played the Jack the Ripper card, arguing that Jack the Ripper was very enthusiastic and--dare I say it?--spunky in the work he did.
 
The judge--Home Wrecker as I recalled--just shook his head and said none of us should win but he had to pick something, whether he liked it or not. I don't remember which card he chose (not mine, in any case--despite my compelling rational for it), but we all took photos of the round because it seemed so remarkable.

The rest of the game went as you'd normally expect with lots of laughs and fun along the way. But that was the round all of us would remember.

Craziest round of Apple to Apples Oranges ever!

Later in the evening, a torrential downpour of rain hit Rangeley with lightning flashing across the sky and thunder rolling through the hostel. It was a good night to be indoors!

Unable to sleep, I stayed away in my bed reading A Serial Killer In Nazi Berlin--about a real-life serial killer that stalked victims in Nazi Germany during WWII. It was farcical in a way, watching these Germans trying to track down a serial killer while they were systematically exterminating Jews and other minorities in concentration camps, even going so far as to have their policemen dress up in drag in an attempt to lure the killer out. (Did I mention--this is not a fictional account! It's all true!) The book was slow at times, but I got sucked into it pretty quick. Probably not surprising given that I was trying to argue that Jack the Ripper was "spunky" earlier in the day. =)

My home for the night!

The hostel had a pet pig running around the yard which some of the hikers played with. =)