Days 76-82: All the Zeros

So, I haven’t made it to day 82 yet, but I’m not planning on blogging while Andrea and I explore Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor and Portland, Maine. This is hopefully going to explain the last couple days and then I’ll have a little break from the blogging daily life.

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 7am and quickly got everything packed and ready to go. We were both ready to go by 8am, but our ride didn’t show. The trail angel, Ziggy, messaged me at 8:45am and said his vehicle was having trouble and he hadn’t been able to leave yet. He gave me another number for someone else to try. I took this as a sign.

While we were sitting and waiting, I kept compulsively checking the weather. That day looked great, but it looked like thunderstorms would be rolling in over night, temperatures would drop into the 40s, and the following day (the day I would be summiting Mount Washington-the one place known for wind speeds up to 200 miles per hour and quickly changing weather) would be raining and thunderstorms throughout the day. If I went up, I’d be camping that night, camping on a ridge the following night, and doing a boulder scramble down Mount Madison in slick conditions to town.

I had started to settle on the idea that this just isn’t a safe plan I was making, and definitely not an enjoyable one at all. I was only wanting to hike those three days to stay on a schedule, and the whole point of hiking the Appalachian trail is to enjoy the journey, not to create rules for yourself that must be followed or “else.”

I got a message from FarOut and then I called her. She agreed that the weather for the following day didn’t look good for Mount Washington. And not only because of the obvious danger of being caught in a thunderstorm on top of a 12 mile exposed ridge line, but because we’ve worked this hard, hiked over 800 miles to get to this point-the supposedly best views on the Appalachian trail- and I’d be making a climb to have guaranteed zero views. What’s even the point? She also made a comment that stuck with me: “Self Care is more important than your pride.” Nail. On. The. Head.

With all of that in my head, by the time I got the late text, I knew it was a sign that I needed to just take this time and enjoy spending it with Andrea while she’s here, and then pick up where I left off when I get back from our trip. Cholula ended up coming to pick us up and drove us to Gorham, New Hampshire, the town I was supposed to be walking into 3 days from now that Andrea had already booked 2 nights in-that was non refundable.

They let us check in early, which was nice. I decided to check my reservation for the rental car so I could see about getting it a day early. The number to the Avis location wasn’t a real number. The “map” didn’t correspond to an actual Avis location at all. I panic, realizing we don’t actually have real reservation. I call Orbitz, the company I booked the car through-they couldn’t find the reservation even though I was telling it to them while looking at it-and then I got hung up on. Cool.

Andrea and I kick into gear and start calling any and everyone trying to find a car. Otherwise the whole dang trip is a bust. The one and only place that has a car in the “area” is literally back in Littleton, New Hampshire where I rented the previous car. Ok, then. Cholula says she’ll take us there to get it when we can, but then it’s a matter of how to get back to the trail from there.

We start messaging and calling people. One taxi service quoted me $200 to take me all of 41 minutes to trail. Seriously? After almost another hour of making calls to disconnected numbers and taxidermists, I finally got a response from a lady that Ziggy had text me this morning.. she says she’ll put me in her calendar and only charge me $50 to take me back to trail from the Enterprise. I half think this will fall through, but I’m going to keep praying on it that this lady will show up that day and keep her word. Cholula won’t be an option because she will be up in Maine, and then DeepFried is going home for a few weeks while Trippin hikes to Katahdin before coming back to do the southern half of the trail with her. This lady is my only reasonable option.

Anyway. We ended up eating lunch with Cholula and she stayed and hung out with us. We had a great time, talking, sharing some wine, and watching movies. This morning we all went to breakfast and Beaver came and joined us, he’s unexpectedly having to zero here, too, because he’s waiting on a package that hasn’t shown up yet. We’ll hang out here today, get the car tomorrow, then head to the coast for some R&R, ocean views, and hopefully some puffin sightings.

So, this is where I’ll leave you guys for now. I’ll be back on trail July 27th and I’ll be updating once I have service following that day. This will be the nice reset I’ve been needing. I love y’all!