8/17/99 Dan Quinn's Barn   Miles Today : 6.0 Miles to Katahdin : 463.2

Yup, a whole 6 miles today, an entire, gruling 6 miles. After a late start from the lookout this morning, it was a nice walk down the ridge to the road. My knee bothered me some today, mostly on the uphills, but it was tolerable.

When I got to the road, I headed to Don Quinn's, local businessman who provides water to hikers and a place to sleep across the street in his barn. I was hanging out on his porch, taking a break, talking with some section hikers enjoying the nice day and the great house. DB showed up soon after, and Dan poked his head out to say hello. Dan is a great guy who owns an architectural restoration company. We chatted for a while, he told us we were welcome to stay, and even use his Webber Grill. That's all we needed to hear. We lounged around his house for awhile, sitting down by the brook, hoping that other thru-hikers would show up and we could play some whiffleball. No such luck, but it was a great day to chill out.

Later, we hitched into the town of Woodstock. This is a very nice, very artist and craft driven town. No matter, there was an outfitter where I picked up a knee brace and a supermarket. After making all of our purchases, we hitched back to Dan's place and started to cook. Our feast included Lemon-pepper chicken, pasta, ragu roasted red pepper sauce and grated parmesan cheese. Yum, yum. We were just finishing our feast when Hummingbird, a northbounder, showed up at the house. She is trying to get to Hanover (or Hangover as it is known by thru-hikers) tomorrow as well. As I was cleaning up, she whopped DB in a game of Connect Four. Not long after, we headed for the barn, as it is getting dark around 6:15 these days. Just before I started my journal, I noticed lightening outside, which was strange since I didn't notice any clouds in the sky. As it turns out, there is one big white puffy cloud hanging in the sky. From what we could tell, the lightening was contained in the cloud, and every time it would fire, the cloud would illuminate in the sky like a giant lightbulb. It is what I imagine our brain would look like, electric bolts firing from synapse to synapse. Bottom line, very cool.

Unfortunately, our lazy day leaves us with a 23 mile day tomorrow. I am going to give it a go, but if my knee bothers me, I am just going 14 miles and hitching into Hanover. Oh joy, playing the injury game once again.

-Chomp

< Previous Entry | Next Entry >