Miles: 6.5
Hours: 6
No Name, Glassman and I woke up this morning at 5 AM with the agreement that we would try to get a hotel room tonight in Lincoln after hiking about 15 miles. By now it doesn't get light before 6, so we broke camp in the dark with the use of headlamps and we were on the trail by 6:30. This is the earliest I've started hiking so far. It had rained all night and the trail was slippery. When we reached the first summit, Mt. Cube, we called all of the nearby hotels and had trouble finding a hotel with rooms available for tonight. We had forgotten that it is Labor Day weekend and many places were sold out. At the next mountain peak (you can only get cell phone reception on mountain peaks, so we knew we had only two places today to make travel plans) we made more phone calls to more hotels while taking a snack break. It was a good place to take a break-we were entranced by the clouds-we had hiked higher than the clouds and they were gorgeous.
We found an available hotel room in Lincoln, NH at the Woodward Hotel while we were on the mountain top. Then we were excited about getting to town tonight, so we picked up speed. But in the next mile I caught my foot in a root and pulled off my boot, tripping me up; Glassman ran head first into a tree, injuring his ego; and No Name fell down a slippery rock, banging up his knee. So we decided to bail earlier than planned, and hitch a ride from the first road. This would mean we had to hitch-hike more miles, but we wouldn't have to hike as many miles. This was of concern to No Name because as a Nobo he has to reach Katahdin before it closes on October 15 and he is still 400 odd miles away, so he is really rushing to get as many trail miles a day as possible. But after he was limping because of his knee he decided to rest up with us and go on tomorrow.
When we got to the road the three of us began our hitch-hiking saga of the day. First an old woman picked us up in her station wagon and took us to the next intersection, then a man in a pick-up gave us another ride to a gas station. An old guy picked us up and drove us to his house where we sat in his driveway to catch the next ride. It was pleasant, for about 25 minutes we sat in the shade of an apple tree in the grass and waited for a ride. Having no luck we decided to start walking. As we walked down the road a station wagon with two 20-something year old women pulled over. They thought they recognized No Name and Glassman as hikers they had picked up before and were disappointed to not know us. The front tire of their car was completely flat but they hadn't noticed it so Glassman and No Name changed it for them. After that they agreed to give us a ride into Lincoln, but only after stopping at their campground to pick someone up.
As we drove they told us that they were best friends and also one woman was the other woman's aunt. They further told us that they were engaged to marry brothers so after the weddings the one guy would be the woman's uncle and her brother-in-law. As we puzzled over these family connections they pulled into the campground. This campground is a place where maybe six families live all summer (but they are probably all intermarried as these two girls are). There are run-down trailers scattered about, with junked cars and ATVs as lawn decorations, and an on-site bar made of four trailers pushed next-to and on-top-of each other fixed together with pallets. It felt like the kind of place where any minute someone could come out of the bushes in full camouflage gear with a rifle and demand to know why we had crossed onto their property. It felt like the kind of place where you expect to see skinny stray cats and smell garbage (though I didn't actually smell any garbage). I re-read that and cringe at how judgmental I sound. It felt like the kind of place that was teetering dangerously close to the edge before, but has been pushed over the edge by this economic downturn. Finally, the girls picked up or dropped off or switched or whatever they were doing and we were back on the road again, safely moving away from the campground.
They dropped us off at a grocery store in Lincoln and after we shopped we got a ride from a couple we affectionately refer to as 'the hippie couple'. They had a dog with them in the car who was suffering from a severe tooth ache. They had just moved to the city three days earlier because they thought it would be fun and their good friends ran the hippie shop in town. They took us to the hotel.
All in all we had a good day of hitch-hiking. Everyone was pleasant and we got to Lincoln without too much trouble. We appreciate very much all of the generous people who offered us and all of our hiking gear a free ride today.
We enjoyed the swimming pool and hot tub at the hotel. Somehow No Name sweet talked the woman at the front desk into giving us two free breakfast tickets and he arranged for her to give us a ride back to the trail head in the morning! So we relaxed for the rest of the evening.
A newt? At our campsite this morning in the dark.
Our tent site this morning before breaking camp. My tent is the yellow one in front.
View from Mt. Cube above the clouds.
Fugitive, Glassman, No Name above the clouds
No Name figuring out our hitching plan.
No Name and Glassman changing a tire on our next hitch.
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