zero day

today is the first day in over 2 weeks that we are taking a break. we are having a "zero day" which means we are walking ZERO miles! we had to do 16-12-16 miles the last 3 days to make it to Hanover, NH where this zero
day is taking place. we are worn OUT after making it through the white
mountains. i am looking forward
to sitting around and drinking mountain dew all day.

people always ask what we do besides hike. well..sunday when the trail went by an old man's house, we sat on his front porch and ate ice cream he gave us. then he taught us the fine sport
of croquet (yes tony won...). AND the best part of the whole day was when we were reunited with our friends daisy and James! we were separated 2 weeks ago and it was so wonderful to see them again. i literally went to bed smiling.

and just yesterday, we went into a senior citizens/community center and did laundry and took showers. all for a mere $5. oh the things we take for granted at home.

and we got attacked by yellow jackets so that is super exciting. my sisters know my fear of stinging bugs is rooted in the old wasp sting to the face story where I ended up with a even chubbier face that I already have and 3 overjoyed sisters. anyways, I got stung 3 times and tony got stung once (pictured below)

so, we are done with the 100
mile wilderness. are done with the mahoosucs. done with the white mountains. we have walked the impossibly beautiful franconia ridge. they say this 20% of the trail contains 80% of the work. all the hikers going north tell us "y'all have done the hard part first" "it's all a joke after this" etc etc.

SO our plan is to amp up our
mileage and knock the remaining 1700 or so miles out before december. my DREAM is that it will be before thanksgiving!

my next post, Lord willing, will
be from Vermont! it's only a mile away so I'm tempted to go there today....



****please pray for our friend don. he had to go home for a little while due to some health issues. he is 64 and the trail is hard enough on us youngins. we miss him very much!*****

snow in August??!

no I'm not lying. it SNOWED on us last night. we were camping "cowboy" (no tent against my better judgement) style on top of Mt. Garfield. **reference homeless style picture below. this scene was further humiliating because of the Yale students that stopped by our campsite to take a picture of the mountain and looked at me with disgust!

anyways, we went to bed and woke up at midnight to snowflakes on our faces. we scrambled around putting our tents up and slept soundly for 6 more hours until 0600 when we woke up and hiked for 8 beautiful, majestic hours.

we crossed mt.lafeyette, mt. lincoln, and mt. little haystack today. this was over the franconia ridge which was the most beautiful ridge walk we have had so far. the weather was beautiful and sunny and the 10 miles absolutely flew by!

we ate at McDonald's in lincoln, nh after hitching into town (the prospect of McDonald's magically making me walk faster).

tonight, we are staying at "Chet's Place." chet is a former thru hiker who had an unfortunate accident with a camping stove that left him handicapped. he has opened his house for free to any thru hiker that wants to stay. free places are always packed.

they are currently playing mini golf while I keep score and write my blog
and get hit on the head by falling cherries from putt putt cherry trees.

tomorrow we will have a pretty tough day climbing out of franconia notch (a notch is essentially a steep-sided valley) and into the rest of the treacherous white mountains!

you guys keep it real. we love all of you!!!

also, one of our trail family members Kyle caught up with us yesterday so we were excited to see him!! now we just have to catch the rest of our trail family!

and, mark is winning at mini golf. tony is not happy.

white

remember the little rainstorm discussed in the previous blog? well, that little rainstorm happened on top of Mt. Madison yesterday. we are officially in the white mountains which are arguably the hardest part of the whole AT.

first of all, there are way less free shelters. there are "huts" which cost anywhere from 85-150$/night. so in order for a lowly hiker to have a chance to stay there, the lowly hiker has to work for stay. and only 2-4 hikers/night have the privilege to wash dishes, sweep the floor, wipe tables, give presentations on the trail to be able to stay.

we have stayed in the carter hut (which tony hated because of the mice) and the Madison springs hut (which was way nicer and took 14 thru hikers because it was sleeting and freezing and everyone was soaking wet). people have died of exposure and hypothermia up there so we weren't turned away!

today, we did the extremely touristy mt. Washington that is 6288 feet in elevation. additionally, it has the highest recorded wind speed of 231 mph! shout out to the nice family we met and asked us all kinds of questions!

tonight, we are staying at the lake of the clouds hut dungeon (pictured below) I told tony and mark they looked like paul and silas in jail.

in personal news, we're doing great and are learning how to spend every waking moment together! love y'all!!

NEW STATE

yesterday was our last day in maine. and let me tell you, my nurse friends will agree, the last day of anything is always.always crazy.

it started off as a pretty normal day. a little drizzly, pretty warm, etc. we were 17 miles from town. so like always, we wanted to get as close to town(burger king) as we could that day...

the short version is....we made it 5 miles through a bad rainstorm. we had our gourmet tuna and ramen noodle lunch and headed out for 5.2 more.

my leg started hurting. it started raining harder. it got dark. our headlamps went on. it started raining harder. it got pitch black. my leg is killing me. we climb up an impossibly steep waterfall/rock formation. THEN we round a corner and the "trail" is a river. a rushing, angry, 3-4 deep river.

we can see the white blazes still so this river is really the trail and we HAVE to be close to the campground. tony goes ahead while i stand with water rushing around me. in the pitch dark. with a 30 pound pack on my back. the trail is impassable is the verdict. so we turn around and wade back through the river we just came through and camp out on a ledge.

our sleeping bags were dry. and our clothes were dry. THANK GOODNESS.we shared our last poptart and went gratefully to sleep.

so that was the day we left Maine and. came to New Hampshire. today, we Re in gorham, nh and have gone 298 miles! we are reunited with our trail family and have had our burger king.

hope everyone is happy and safe and dry at home. we love and miss you guys every day.

PS google mahoosuc notch. that's the location of the bottom picture.

the cabin.

we are in andover, Maine tonight. we arrived yesterday to the old towne home day. complete with tractor pulls, law mower races, flea markets, and all
kinds of un(I thought)northerner type activities.

so today we "slackpacked." which means we hiked 10.1 luxurious miles without a 30 pound pack on! the cabin we are tenting outside of quaintly named "the cabin" took us to a road and dropped us off and picked us back up when we were done! and the little
old lady owner made us shepherds pie!

but tomorrow we are back to the real world! we are 24 miles from the new hampshire border! 256 miles done! and about 50 miles from burger king. yes tony is beside himself about that. the towns we have been in don't allow fast food restaurants in them!

all right! I'll talk to y'all soon!!

hotel. motel. hostel.

Mileage: 220

Moose sightings: 3

Bear sightings: 1 too many

State: Still in MAINE

City/Town: Rangeley

Relationship status: It's complicated...just kidding

We are in a "real" hotel tonight. Now if we could be in a hotel that was not built circa 1950 with the same bedspread I wouldn't be any less happy! A bed and a shower is really all I can ask for right now!

Over the past 3 days, we have been over North and South Crocker Mountains, Spaulding Mountain, Lone Mountain, Saddleback Junior, The Horn, and Saddleback Mountain. When I first envisioned the AT, I pictures it as tons of walking and camping. Um no. This is actually MOUNTAIN climbing right now. For real. It is really hard but really really rewarding/satisfying. Every night (at 1830 when I go to bed) I just lay down feeling the kind of tired that only comes with pushing yourself to the max. Our bodies can do SO much more than we think they can! We
can ALL do amazing things we never knew we could.

In other news, tomorrow (August 2nd) is the twinnies bday! So everyone let Amanda and Laurie know how much you love them!

I'll talk to y'all soon. Oh and I got called a Southern Belle today....I took it as a compliment ;)