It happened. She finally did it. After 7 months of saying it was going to happen, Bunny finally got up before me and went moose hunting. Actually, she woke me up, and, for 20 minutes, gave me a play by play of what she was going to do which culminated with “get a picture of a moose.” By the time she got done with the explanation, all the moose had had plenty of time to leave the state (which is what they did). I just hope Bear doesn’t get word of the new early rising Bunny.
While Bunny was out chasing phantom moose, I had plenty of time to prepare breakfast for her so we could eat when she got back from the hunt. I’m not as worried about everyone ditching me this morning now that we have slept in near proximity to Chip. I’m not saying it was him, but, coming from his direction was a nice, steady, loud, snore. Not the kind that Sassy claims Bear ventriloquates to her, but a deep, rumbling, second chance for EFG.
As soon as we were ready, Bunny and I took off to climb Old Speck. It was not a clear morning; there was low cloud cover which we soon climbed into. I was trying to build up a bit of a head start today because both of my knees are hurting. I suppose I have been putting extra pressure on my right leg to compensate for my left and now it’s catching up to me. Even with our 15 minute head start on everyone, we were all together when we got to the summit trail to the fire tower. Since we were in full fog, we decided to skip the side trip to the tip top.
We did take the opportunity to have a snack while giving the weather a chance to clear. Chip had his first Payday of the day. We have discovered Chip has a problem. He’s a peanut addict, more specifically, a Payday addict. It became apparent last night when he was setting up his hammock. Out of the blue, he stood up and said, “Hi. My name is Chip and I’m addicted to Paydays.” He was kind of forced into the declaration when one of his food bags spilled out about 50 King Size, shareable bars. Not once has he shared. We assured him, we were all in this together. I admitted to my M&M addiction, Bear admitted to his Oreo addiction, Sassy admitted to her gluten-free addiction, and Bunny admitted to her bunny addiction (collecting, not eating). We had a group hug and put Chip to bed before returning to our platform and talking about him behind his back…doh! I wasn’t supposed to say that, but, let me reiterate…he has never shared a Payday, with anyone!
Sassy did promise us fogged in summits in which she has been very true to her word. What she didn’t tell us was that the minute she and Bear leave a summit, 9 times out of 10, the weather will clear. It’s been true on Mt Washington, Franconia Ridge, Mt Killington, as well as today, on Old Speck. If we were smart enough to pick up on this trend, we would send them on ahead so we could have our clear views. In reality, I did recognize this trend, but I was afraid to let Chip wander off by himself with a 25# bag of Paydays. I’d hate to come find him in a sugar coma when all he needed was a sponsor close by.
Heading down into Grafton Notch we did run into lots of day hikers under clear blue skies. The trail was gorgeous—a dirt track with…switchbacks! Could it be that Maine just put on a hard face to trick us into thinking she would be just as bad as New Hampshire? Truth of the matter is that Speck Pond Campsite is the last AMC controlled area we will come into contact with. I do believe the AMC trail maintenance responsibilities end at the summit of Old Speck because it was at this location where actual maintenance began.
At a lower overlook (where we had a great view of the clear summit of Old Speck), Chip used his Verizon wireless phone to call Pine Ellis and arrange a pickup time in Grafton Notch at the bottom of our descent. Bear and Sassy have AT&T service while Bunny has Straight Talk; both of which have been completely useless to us for a couple of hundred miles now. (I, am not allowed to carry a phone and get ridiculed for asking to even asking to touch Bunny’s phone.) But Chip, with Verizon and enough Paydays to see us through the darkest of times may prove to be the most valuable member of our tramily.
Gloria picked us up and offered us ice cold lemonade to drink. I asked her to please take us to Bethel, ME, where our trail Angel, Alice has sent us another package of food. On the way, Bunny claimed to recognize a brewery we ate at with Peter and Marcia, but I don’t trust her memory…she doesn’t even remember the bridge in Hanover. It doesn’t matter that Peter and Marcia don’t remember taking us, either. It seems I’m the only one with a working memory of past events. Just because the three other people have forgotten, I’m supposed to believe that I dreamt up the bridge over the Connecticut River?
We went by the B&B where the package was sent, but there wasn’t a package for us. The owner was very nice and took me in and showed me where she kept the packages and let me look. She even took me out to her car to see if she had left it in there by accident. Gloria took us by the post office in the off chance that they had it, but nothing. We eventually gave up looking for today. I don’t have a lot of faith in any of the delivery services: FedEx, UPS, or the USPS. Each one of them has lied about making deliveries to us at one point or another on this journey.
We gave up and headed to Pine Ellis. Gloria saw a hitchhiker and asked if we minded picking him up. She could tell he was a real hiker because of his hobble. We actually recognized him and said it was fine with us. He had hitched a ride but the driver had taken him in the opposite direction of what he wanted and now he had a 7 mile road walk to get back to Andover instead of the 3 he would have had if he hadn’t hitched.
Inside, at Pine Ellis, we went in to register with Ilene (the owner) and Naomi (Gloria’s sister who handles the day to day operation of the hostel). We told them we were interested in slack packing as much as we could in the next few days and they came up with a plan for us to get in 4 days worth while staying here. They started bills for all of us and asked our names.
When Chip gave his name, there was a sudden change in the atmosphere. There was a collective gasp by the three women. Ilene came right out and said she doesn’t like the name of Chip and could she call him something else—Charles, Chuck, anything? Chip said that was his name. He’s made it over 1900 miles and doesn’t have a trail name. They reluctantly agreed to call him Chip, but we could all see they were starting to line up for the mouthwash to get the name out of there mouths. Bear, Sassy, Bunny, and I all got a room upstairs which had 2 double beds in it, and Chip was put in an outside bunkhouse (by his request—he was afraid he might snore. It was him last night!) Chip doesn’t mind snoring around strangers, but since he was now part of our group, he is trying to minimize the impact on us.
We had time to clean up and start laundry before going out for some food. While we were getting cleaned up, Pappy stopped by to visit Ilene. Pappy is the oldest person ever to attempt a thru-hike. He’s 87. We started within a few days of each other in Georgia, but we missed meeting him. We had heard he had flipped up to Katahdin and was heading south, so we were looking forward to meeting him, now here he was at our hostel. Pappy had stayed here when he thru-hiked the AT in the late 90s. It was such a treat to see the reunion with Ilene.
Loner Boner was also staying at our hostel. I wanted to ask him about his name, I thought it might be some reference to viagra and being old. I’m glad I didn’t ask. Boner is his last name and he’s solo hiking for his third time. He’s 78 and has terminal bone cancer. Most people who run into him on the trail ask him if he’s Pappy, so the first thing he asked Pappy was “Are you Loner Boner?” as a payback for the mistaken identity.
EFG