Monso(o)n, ME

Here I am in my last town on the whole AT. I don't have a lot of time for blog amazingness, so this is the jist.

We hiked out of Stratton and made it to the little burg of Caratunk, which is not really a town, but a post office. Except that nearby is the awesome outfitters, Northern Outdoors, complete with incredibly cheap accommodation, restaurant, microbrewery, and most importantly - giant hot tub. We got a ferry across the Kennebec River from a crazy guy named Hillbilly Dave, and then spent the entire day being lazy and clean and soaking in big bubble baths.

As I mentioned before, we have determined an ending date that I have to meet my parents by. Also, this weekend there is supposed to be some major rain blowing in from all these fabulous tropical storms and hurricanes and whatnot. Who wants to hike in that? I rarely want to hike on nice days, so obviously not me. This being said, we decided that rather than hike out of Caratunk, we would hitch ourselves all over creation one last time to get to Monson. Incidentally, it was perhaps the best hitch I've had on the whole trip, as it was from a logging truck driven by an old guy with the greatest Mainer accent ever. After Monson is the last stretch of the trail, called the "100 mile wilderness," which happens to actually be about 115 miles. This will take us approximately a week to complete. Therefore, once we see how the weather goes, we'll be embarking on our long-awaited final days.

Good Lord, I can't wait to stop hiking.

That's about all the news there is. In just a couple of weeks I'll be back in Virginia, still being a bum, but without wearing a backpack all day.

See y'all then.