7-21-12

We took a zero day and Short 'n Sweet took us to the best farmers market I've ever been to. We only had 45 minutes to run around sampling the amazing granola, yogurts, cheeses and breads before we had to send Rockin' Robin away on the bus. Bye Robin...we will miss you! Now our train will only be the three of us, though once you are on our Runaway Train, you are a member forever.

Toe Knee, Eagle Eye and I spent a few hours this afternoon planning out how we will get through the White mountains of New Hampshire. It seems harder for slower hikers like us, and more expensive because you have to pay for campsites. We hope to get lucky getting to work for stay at the huts, but most huts will only accept two thruhikers a night and we are at the peak of the hiker bubble for both north and southbound thruhikers. We will be lucky if we get to work for stay at a hut. People pay $110 a night to stay at a hut. I know I won't be able to do that.

Toe Knee and Eagle Eye got new boots at EMS this afternoon while I worked on catching up on blogs. I like the blogs to tell my story so I can remember things later, as well as for you readers, but it takes a while to write each one. Sometimes I have service to post an update, but I don't always have the next blog written yet, only notes from that day. Blogging your hike is work, by the way, and takes time and energy that sometimes is impossible to come by. I try to keep up with notes to myself, but often I don't even get that far and I have to piece together the day in question by looking back at pictures and the guidebook and asking my group what they remember. I hope you all enjoy the blog. I know I will value this as my journal, and the other hikers in my group have said they want to come back and read this when our hike is over. They are also struggling to keep up on their journals and notes because it takes all your time to thruhike the AT. Way more than you spend working at your job. Don't thruhike if your goal is hanging out in the mountains and relaxing. That is the opposite of an AT thruhike.