You've Got a Friend

September 12 Mile 1934-
Here's a story that in a million years I couldn't make up. While hiking another gorgeous day in Maine two gentlemen met us SOBO. Shadow and I asked our usual questions. What's your trail name? Where are you from? Peppermint and Geriatric were their names. Peppermint said he was from Nashville, TN. We of course perked up and said "us too". Then Peppermint said "Is your name BJ?". I'm sure the look on our faces was priceless. Shadow said in a hesitant voice "yes". He looked at me and ask, "Are you Clara?". Turns our he and his wife have been reading our blog and we all go to the same chiropractor in town (Dr. Mark Thomas)! Is that not crazy? He's a section hiker that started in Pennsylvania and is planning to finish his hike this year and has been looking for us, but didn't know our trail names. Turns out we are all staying at the same hostel tonight in the small one stop sign town of Andover. Just to let you know how far away from civilization we are right now, the trail is 9 miles from the closest town and the closest town has one gas station, one restaurant for dinner, and one grocery store. All of these businesses are in one building. The downtown is one square block and it's 40 miles from a town that's bigger.
We also ran into Flame and Pigeon. Two hikers we have know since North Carolina and started a day before us. They hiked together for about 800 miles when Pigeon decided to section hike the rest. Now she meets Flame along the way while giving out trail magic. Flame is a 62 year old lady from Texas. When I finally asked her what got her out here in the first place she said that she wanted to do something extraordinary in her life. She read a book about a blind hiker completing the trail and said "If he can do it blind, surely I can do it". Turns out thats true. Her plans are to bury her backpack deep in storage when she gets back and sleep for a week.


Country Mouse and Shadow still NOBO (North Bound)