Zero at Shaw's in Monson

Day Forty-Three
Wednesday, July 8, 2019
Zero Day at Shaw's in Monson

We partook of one of the most amazing breakfast on the  trail this morning prepared by Poet.  Eggs, bacon, home fried potatoes, blueberry pancakes, coffee, orange juice, and plenty of  it. 

After breakfast, the gang all gathered out front to load into the vehicles and head out to the trail.  I watched from the upstairs balcony outside the bunkroom and couldn’t help but wish that I was going to.  We had decided to zero today though to give my body time to recuperate since I was feeling poorly yesterday.

We spent some time planning our last days because we knew we needed to book a flight home so we wouldn’t have to do it  last minute.  It’s hard to know exactly how long the wilderness will take and also to know what the weather will be like so we can summit Katahdin on a clear day.  So we did the best we could to figure it out and give ourselves some leeway.  So we figured 8 days in the wilderness and 2 more to go the Birches and then summit Katahdin.  Summit day, weather permitting will be July 20.  We booked our flight out of Bangor on Tuesday, July 22. 

With that done, we walked the few blocks into town and to the Lakehouse to search for a shirt.  When we knocked on the door and entered, we found the owner and a few other people in a Bible study.  She asked an employee to take us upstairs to the clothes closet. We searched in vain and came back down.  When she saw that we didn’t get a shirt, she excused herself from the Bible Study and came to us.  She said, “God told me to get this man a shirt.”  So she went to her personal closet and brought down several shirts for Wait-up to choose from.  So she did what God told here to do.  He wore the shirt almost every day through the wilderness to hide from the mosquitoes. 

We had lunch again at the General Store and chose some items to add to our re-supply box that we had previously mailed to Shaw’s.  We also walked down to the Appalachian Trail headquarters to register our expected completion date.  In doing so, I guess we saw most of Monson.  It’s a cute little town and serves hikers well.

Back as Shaw’s we retrieved our box and started packing it in.  Whoo – our packs are going to be heavy going through the wilderness, we have 5 days of food taking us up to Whitehouse Landing where we will have another box for 3 days.

We also worked on both our trekking poles and took parts off some that we found in the hiker box to repair ours to make it the rest of the way.  A guy named Poncho helped us with that.

We switched our room to a private room tonight, but lived to regret it.  All night long, people were up and down and going to the bathroom which was located across the hallway from our bedroom.  Not much sleep to be had.