On August 16

No miles today.  I woke up to a severe lightening and thunderstorm when my alarm went off at 5:20 so I went into the house to tell David, the ex-son-in-law who drives the shuttle that I wanted to cancel my 6 am shuttle ride to the trail.  I know it was early in the morning, but he was rude to me about canceling the shuttle.  I said, yeah, I know it is early, but look outside, there is lightening, I am not hiking up a mountain today, I'm sorry.  And then I made plans to stay somewhere else tonight.  I called The Cabin and they said they could pick me up and that they would reserve a bunk for me.  I asked that they not pick me up until 5 pm so that I could have all day to go to the post office and use the computer at the library.

I went to breakfast at The Red Hen with four other hikers and it was pouring rain.  It was delicious.  The woman who owns it makes all of her own breads on site, including the English Muffins.  I started thinking about how much fun it would be to get a baking apprenticeship for awhile.  What do you think?  After breakfast I stopped at the post office and then spent about four hours blogging at the library, it was pouring rain all day.  When I got back to the hostel at 4:30 Bones and The Hardway were sitting on the porch, they had hiked in the rain and finally decided to come into town for the night, Squirrel and Patrick had gone ahead without them.  I was disappointed that I had decided to go to The Cabin for the night.  So I talked to Bones and The Hardway for 20 minutes before my ride came from The Cabin.  My ride from The Cabin was-that's right-the driver from the scenic overlook at the highway yesterday, Don.  And he was dropping off one hiker to stay at Pine Ellis.  That's right-Nomad got out of the van and said-Hey! I heard that one hiker was leaving here so they had a bed so I decided to switch to here so I could see you!  I said 'Um, Nomad? I'm the one hiker who is going to The Cabin.'  We laughed.  What can you do?

The Cabin is run by Honey and her husband, Bear, and her son, Don.  Honey is 80 and Bear is 77 and they have lived at this house for about 20 years.  So, I arrived at The Cabin and learned that Honey cooks a big meal every night and there is all you can eat food for $10, so I joined about 12 hikers and Honey and Bear at the table.  It was delicious.  I spent the rest of the evening watching movies in their basement.  I decided that I would take a zero day tomorrow also and just sleep in and relax before hiking on.

Fellow hikers, Yogi and Mr. Bibby, at the computers at the Andover Library.

Dinner at The Cabin.  After this picture was taken two more hikers came, as well as Honey and Bear, to also eat.  The man sitting on the left in the grey shirt is Standing  Bear, or Michael.