Two incidents of note happened last night. The first occurrence was right after we finished supper. The women folk naturally disappeared when it came time to pay. Whilst Bear, Good Chip Norris, and I handled the transaction (since it requires math, Bunny is right out the door) Sassy and Bunny exited the General Store only to discover an actual bear right outside the door. I hazard to include this bear in our overall bear count (currently at 8 which includes a scraggly bear in the trail side zoo in New York) because he didn’t pose a significant threat. We were all so excited to see a bear that we walked right up and touched it. Only Bear wanted to run, but we convinced him since it was dead and tagged, we would be fine.
The second incident happened in the middle of the night. I was hot and sleeping on top of the covers trying to cool off. I can only imagine that what I experienced was the drug thief returning to the scene of the crime. Our room was only one of two on a back stairway. There is no way anyone could accidentally enter by mistake. Since I was flipped in the bed, I heard the door as it began to creak open. When the intruder stuck his head in, I woke up and lifted my head. He quickly backed out. Bear also heard and saw him, but I thank my lucky stars he didn’t get up to pursue him since I have heard, Bear sleeps in the buff. Some things can’t be unseen.
Returning from breakfast, we paid our hostel bills and said our goodbyes to Ilene, Naomi, and Gloria. We have spent 5 nights here at Pine Ellis and have really grown to like and respect these women. This may not be the fanciest place we’ve stayed at (not even in the top 10) but these women go all out for their guests. They know the trail in Maine well even though none of them have actually hiked it. They actually listen to everyone passing through. Add in running a hostel for the last 30 years and they are a great resource to hikers. Ilene will keep the hostel open as long as she is alive and able.
Gloria took us back to Route 17. We didn’t realize how high we were at the road, but we definitely noticed how hard Gloria’s minivan was struggling climbing back to the pass. The engine light even made an appearance on the drive (we thought she was slowing down to show us a moose). I hope her van makes it, especially since she is running all of our gear up to Fieldstone Cottages in Rangeley. Bear and Sassy chose to borrow day packs to use today while Bunny and I put all of our unneeded gear into my pack and shipped it on. That means I am wearing Bunny’s pack today. I don’t want to make adjustments to the way her pack fits me because it took us a while to get it dialed in for her. It’s a bit uncomfortable for me since her waist belt sits right on the bottom of my rib cage.
Thank god it was an easy walk with very little climbing because Bunny’s pack was so annoying to me. This was the easiest 13 miles we have walked since Massachusetts. We walked along the shore of Moxie Pond then stopped for a snack at Sabbath Day Pond lean-to. Since Good Chip Norris started walking with us, I get to hear a lot of Bear’s stories for a second time. I mean this in a good way because I’ve only cried 3 times on the trail and all 3 times it’s because I was laughing at Bear’s stories.
Take Bear story #71. (I think Bear should write a book about his nearly 40 years working for NASA) I’ll give an abbreviated version of the story but know I won’t do it justice because Bear uses his entire body in the telling. In his earlier years, Bear (not the name he used at NASA) was in charge of developing a glove box (we’ve all seen versions on TV in the movies where scientists insert their arms into gloves to reach in a sealed box to do experiments to separate themselves from a virus—think Andromeda Strain or Outbreak) to be used in space. While testing the box on a shuttle mission, he was sitting in ground control with an English engineer and an engineer from the Netherlands who were involved with building the box.
Astronauts don’t always follow all the rules, especially if they are unnecessary ones and they are in space on a mission (I’m not saying they don’t follow protocols, just that they exert their independence whenever possible without detriment to the mission). Since this was only a test of the glove box, they chose to remove the doors to ease in the functional checks. All of a sudden, Bear got a call from the mission control that the box was in alarm, “what is going on? We need an answer ASAP.” Bear responded he’d check into it, but the box was currently not in use. They would investigate and get an answer. Bear got the engineers to started while he had to step away for a moment.
When he returned, both engineers were sitting straight up and smiling. The English engineer said “We have an answer to the alarm. What we have is an excess of mee-thane.” Then he showed a video clip of an astronaut’s butt floating by the box just before the alarm started going off. Bear, responded that he could not go to ops based upon this video. The engineer from Netherlands said they had more proof. To check their hypothesis, he went to the restroom and farted into a ziplock bag. He then brought the bag to the filter array in the glove box they had in ground control and squeezed the contents into the box. The alarm immediately went off…Mee-thane! They both stopped talking, sat up straight, and smiled more intensely at Bear. “What else?” Bear asked. The English engineer just said “Since you are in charge, you have to go explain this to ground control.”
It was a bit chilly walking after lunch with the feel of a light mist in the air, but no rain. We got picked up at ME Route 4 where we ran into a sobo stopping in Rangeley for the night. When we got to the hostel, the owner, Staci, talked to us about slack packing opportunities for another 3 days. The only catch is that we would have to do a southbound day. I was immediately against this since I am hiking north bound. We agreed that we would slack pack tomorrow and think about the next day in the mean time. Staci also told us that Ilene had called ahead and told her we were great guests and to help us out however she could. What she immediately did for us is tell us that we had the place to ourselves. Even though there were 8 berths, she was not going to allow anyone else to stay if we agreed to stay for 3 nights. We just had to let her know by tomorrow.
We ventured out to Sarge’s Pub and Grub for supper. I was a bit down thinking about how I’ve thrown away this hike, first with slack packing, and now, about to do a southbound hike for a day. I tried not to think much about it, but I was very down feeling like I have failed at this hike. I’ve been a purist all the way up to here. Almost 2000 miles in and I have always hiked northbound without skipping a single white blaze. I know lots of people skip entire sections of trail and still have no problem saying they have thru-hiked the AT. I know…”hike your own hike,” but part of my hike IS judging how others hike. Now I’ve got to apply those same judgemental standards to myself and I’m not happy about it.
On the bright side, we do have a great setup at this hostel with European style beds. We have 8 bunks with curtains to block out light if someone wants to stay up when we are ready to sleep, or, vice versa. We have individual lights and outlets at each bunk. We have our own bathroom for the 5 of us as well as a refrigerator, microwave, refrigerator, and even a kitchen table. This will be our 6th straight night sleeping in a bed and showering. I’m afraid we’re all getting soft.
EFG