July 13 Mile 1080

Rained a bunch last night, but all stopped by morning. Stayed dry in our tents. Got up feeling much better after a good dinner and trail magic last night.
Good thing we tent camped away from
the shelter. After we went to bed a large group of 12 year old hikers descended on the shelters. It's summertime and groups are out hiking and camping, but us thru hikers don't mix well with normal people. We have our own hours and habits. Anyway, they didn't bother us.
Had a 17.5 mile day planned to get to a specific water and camping spot. Up a 1000 foot ridge to start the day and lots of rocks to hike thru. Excited cause at lunchtime we would be hiking thru Caledonia State Park, there is a pool there, water, bathrooms, and a Concession Stand!!! Got there at 1:00 PM and I looked across the field and saw a pool. But the concession stand didn't look very busy. Horror of horrors!! The pool was closed today for maintenance! And so was the concession stand! And no vending machines. We were dumbstruck. Back to eating peanut butter and honey on a totillas shell. And water. While sitting there we saw a huge ice cream delivery truck pull up to make a delivery to the concession stand building. We were inconsolable.
But life and hiking goes on. Had a tough climb after lunch to do another 8 miles for the day, and the light lunch probably made it easier on us, or at least we rationalized it that way.
Hiked thru beautiful mountain laurel and rhodendron thickets- hadn't seem them in quite a while. Also the trail was lined with blueberry bushes. Cisco tried one- " how was it" I asked. "Small" he replied.
Today, Cisco mentioned that the further along we go, the crazier the hike seems. Both of us see things very differently than we did before. And we are in all this new territory now. I asked him if he was still ok with the hike, and he said " absolutely, " and then wistfully remarked, "the woods are our home now."
We sat down a bit later after a long afternoon of hiking thru the green tunnel and listened to the birds and stared off into the woods. So often, you are so busy hiking you don't notice the forest. I remarked, it's too bad we can't just stop early every day and take all this in- but we are trying like everyone else out here to make Maine, so we all have to do the miles. Slower is certainly better.
Got to our camping spot and found terrific spring water at about 6:00 PM. Made very good time today for the 17 miles we did. Camped near a Potomac AT Club cabin.
The weather was threatening, so we got our tents up right away, and made dinner. Cisco even made blueberry muffins! My appetite is definately back!
Just like last night, the rain was very accomodating, waiting for us to finish dinner, clean up, hang the food bags and then, just as we got into our tents, the heavy rain began to fall.
The woods are our home!


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