Day 141

Weather:
Sunny and warm. No rain.

Today's Hike:
Angela's - 0.0 miles

Today was a typical zero day despite our best efforts to make it a real day off. We were all awake by 7am; sleeping in is impossible even when you really want to. Storm and Rocket made a wonderful french toast breakfast which was a wonderful tasty surprise.

After breakfast we all got ready and headed to REI. The drive there was awful. We got stuck in a traffic jam for an hour. Let's just say that being stuck in a traffic jam after consuming large amounts of coffee is an unbearable situation. It may force you to do things you never thought you would out of shear humiliation. Still, I give thanks to empty 16oz. coffee cup that was in the car.

REI was also challenging. I got new shoes for the last leg of the trip. I also had to buy a new pack, since the waist-belt broke on my current pack. This was way more complicated then I anticipated. I tried on five different packs which took forever but finally settled on an Osprey Ariel 65. The pack is comfortable which is an important plus, but it's heavy which is a huge disappointment. So much for reducing my pack weight. At least I know the pack will get me to Katadhin and it has a lifetime warranty.

We ate lunch at Moe's, a huge surprise. I’ve been dreaming about Moe's for months and finally gave up the idea of ever finding one along the trail. It was so good! It made me realize just how much food I can consume in one sitting now. Before the trail, I could only eat half of a burrito, but today I ate the whole thing, some chips, and a scoop of ice cream and still felt hungry. Ridiculous. Muster thinks I have a tapeworm.

After lunch we finished our chores and were back at Angela's by 5pm. After we dropped off our groceries, we headed over to Angela's parents for dinner and a movie. Angela made us a wonderful meal of citrus marinated flounder, orzo salad, and a tomato, mozzarella, fresh dill, and balsamic vinaigrette salad. Her mom also grilled me up some yummy spicy black bean burgers. The entire meal was out of this world. The evening feature presentation was Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Storm and Rocket's favorite childhood movie which they quote constantly. Now we can all relate :)

The night ran late; way past hiker midnight. We were back at Angela's and in bed by 11:15pm.