We started off at 7 AM on the trail after getting a ride from Jeff at the Green Mountain House hostel to McDonalds for breakfast. Since Don’s Brother and Pilgrim are often voting for McD’s breakfast I’m collecting the monopoly game pieces. We’re pretty close to winning a million dollars, a 2014 Fiat, and tickets to the Superbowl. We met up with Spoon again on the trail. Again he was the only northbound thruhiker today. We must be in an anti-bubble.
We came upon two large groups of rock cairns which Spoon and Don’s Brother took videos of. Each of the groups had hundreds of rock piles. These cairns are commonly used on drier trails to mark the way. Of course, the AT has white blazes and thus no cairns are needed. It seems the piles of rocks were almost vigils of some kind. I found a small card of the type given out at funerals. The person had died at 30 years old. The rock piles were so fascinating that we took long breaks at each of them. At the second group some were shaped like inukshuks, the Inuit rock cairns which nearly resembles a person.
It was 93 degrees today and felt like 101 according to weather.com. I feel no guilt in having a hotel room for the night. Nor do I have any problem with our new slackpack procedure. My brother is now here and will be slack packing us tomorrow. This is supposed to be the end of the heat wave though. A front is coming in. We felt the wind strongly today on the mountain tops. The temperatures are supposed to max out in the high 70’s for a while which makes for some great hiking.
I have homesickness from time to time despite not really having a home. Mostly I just miss my dog. He’s been having some problems with hotspots and chewing on himself this summer while I’ve been gone. I can’t wait to bring him to the cold Colorado mountains in September when I’m done with the hike.
-BANZAI!!!
