Day 25 - Thursday, July 7

Linda

We had our first relocation surprise today on the way into Gorham, New Hampshire, and it wasn't a pleasant one. We left at 6:00 and hoped to go the 9.5 miles to Gorham by noon. We got to the Gentian Pond Shelter at 9:00 for a quick break, and came across a trail crew building a solar outhouse, near the shelter. It's designed to break down the sewage quickly, or at least that's the theory. Anyway, it looked very impressive.

We continued on down to Dream Lake where we were hit with the news of the relocation. We came across a note tacked to a tree. The note explained that due to a landowner problem, there was a 5.6 mile relocation. We decided to play by the rules, and dutifully took the relocation. What a mistake! It was a nightmare!. It went nowhere near where the old trail had gone, and made no pretense of even trying to work its way back toward down the river. Oh, no - it snaked around over a beastly hot, dry ridge with 3 or 4 mountains along the way for good measure. We had already run out of water, so had none for 6.4 miles. It was even too hot to eat. If we had been expecting it, the trail wouldn't have been that bad, but it added three hours to our travel time and our spirits were low. What made it even worse was the last hour, as we were coming down the last mountain and could see the Androscoggin River - so near and yet so far.

When we finally dragged ourselves out to the road and crossed the river, we were lucky to get a ride into town right away with a guy from the Forest Service. We were so beat and hot that we literally fell into the first store we came to and quenched our ferocious thirsts with a Coke and a couple apples. I think I could have gulped down a gallon of just about anything liquid at that point. After that quenching, we felt refreshed enough to walk to the Post Office. We met Richard and Ray coming back from McDonalds looking very content. They had gone on the Old AT to save time, since Richard was trying to get a bus out of town. It turned out the only bus each day was at 7:55 am, so it wouldn't have mattered anyway, but he didn't know that in advance. After seeing our weary bodies, they were probably just as glad they came the way they did. Mike had been hiking with us all morning, and he probably wished he'd stuck with Richard and Ray. I know I wish we had, but no matter now.

We went on to the Post Office and picked up our mail. We had three packages and a huge pile of letters. Walked over to McDonalds and relaxed in air conditioned comfort with quarter pounder, fries and banana shakes, while we read the mail. We were really dusty and grubby, and got a lot of stares, but didn't really care.

Later, the five of us got a room together at the Tourist Village Motel, complete with color TV, swimming pool, air conditioning and, most importantly, a great shower. Getting clean was the first order of business, and once that was taken care of, Ronald took a swim and I walked over to the laundromat to wash our clothes. After relaxing for a while we went to dinner. Had a great julienne salad and almost drank the restaurant dry of water. Drove the waitress crazy filling up our water glasses. We finally asked for a pitcher, just to keep her from running her legs off. We strolled around town for a bit to walk off dinner, then cruised by the Dairy Bar and had a sundae for dessert.

At the Dairy Bar, we met two guys who started the AT in Georgia in March. We talked to them for a long time and exchanged information. We should start meeting more Northbounders now, since many of the early starters have had time to make it to New England. We're really looking forward to that. After ice cream, we went to make some phone calls. Called Mom and Dad and Grandma Florence. Randy was there with her so I had a long chat with him, too. Grandma seems to be very chipper and it was good to talk with her. Aunt Alice is staying with Grandma for a while before going home to California, and Randy is down there a lot. Randy was leaving Oregon on Sunday to start home to Virginia after living out there for a year. He plans to take several weeks and visit various national parks, etc. along the way. We went back to the motel around 11:45 and went to bed. It felt good to sleep in a real bed after our ordeal earlier in the day.

Ron

Today started out as a fairly easy ten miles to Route 2 and Gorham, New Hampshire. Since we were low on water, we delayed our breakfast until we reached the first spring. At Dream Lake we discovered a relocation that was not in the trail book. The trail relocation would add an additional 5.6 miles to our hike into Gorham. We were really pissed. The original AT went down an easy stretch following a stream. The new relocation crossed four ridges and two mountains. We also had no water except for a quart I got from a stream a quarter mile off the trail.

The last leg of the trip to Gorham was hot and dry. We really pushed ourselves to the limit to cover the last 6.4 miles in three hours over rough terrain. I was really beat and hungry when we arrived at the road. The lack of water and food made my stomach knot. We soon caught a ride into Gorham.

When we got to town we found Richard and Ray already rested. Since Richard was trying to catch a bus, they had hiked the old route. It turns out his bus will not leave until tomorrow anyway. The five of us (Linda, myself, Ray, Mike, and Richard) got in a double hotel room to serve as our headquarters while in town. With Richard gone for his two week stint in the National Guard, it is not likely that he will catch up to us when he gets back to the trail.

After picking up our supply drop from the Post Office we went to McDonalds for lunch. I even managed to get in a swim at the motel pool. This evening we went to a local restaurant for supper. Today turned out pretty good, even after the relocation. Tomorrow we enter the White Mountains.

(15.1 Miles - 294.9 Total)