Day 14 - Freedom Girls

I'd like to know the idiot that pitched my tent on a slope so that I spent the whole night rolling into the tent wall. Oh.......I guess that was me. Sigh.

I also wonder how long it will take me to learn to protect the mouthpiece of the tube to my drinking bag that goes from inside my backpack to where I can drink as I walk. Every time! I set my pack on the ground I let the mouthpiece drag through the dirt. The thing should come with a cover for dummies like me.

Living with little privacy we all pretend not to see what would embarrass a fellow hiker. i.e. I came out of the woods to cross a forest road and a man was totally naked changing clothes. I slipped back into the woods for a few minutes.

I met a nice looking man on the trail who sorta reminded me of Allen Bush. We were resting and exchanging pleasantries when he mentioned how bad the bugs were this year (AGREED). I said I was cautious of ticks because of lime disease. Then he went off about how it was caused by a government experiment gone wrong and everyone in Conn. knew about it but no one talked about it. Even Sam Upshaw wouldn't come up with that conspiracy theory. He was getting so worked up I quickly got back on the trail and then hid in the woods for a while after he passed. You never know what's going on in a nice looking face's mind. Oh and he stopped looking anything like Allen.

Towards evening I climbed the Wesser Bald Fire Tower and there me up with 4 wild and wonderful women who recently met on Facebook. They were hiking together for a week and called themselves the Freedom Girls. We could see the ridge we had just walked down and it looked impressive looking at it from above. They intended to sleep up there to watch the sunset/sunrise. I thought about it but decided to walk down .8 of a mile to the shelter because I needed water. After I set up my camp I walked back up the trail to watch the sunset with them. (Note to Susan Reigler: J J carries Fluffy, a soft toy dog, with her around the world. She mountain climbs in places like Pakistan and the Tetons. She also had a small bear, Duffy, tied to her backpack.) Anyway when I returned they had taken a picture of themselves on the fire tower stripped to the waist with arms outstretched over the mountains like the scene in Titanic. Sadly by that time it was too cold up there for me to mimic them. It was fun to see a real sunset because most of the time we're in thick woods. The next day they told me the fog was so thick during the night they couldn't see 5 feet away and their stuff was soaked from the fog/dew. I walked the .8 of a mile back down to camp with my great head light (photo staff gift) singing Row Row Your Boat over and over. I figured no bear would be interested in someone that sang so poorly but I was a little nervous.

I'm sad the Freedom Girls have left the trail because they made me happy to be around them. One of the problems of being such a late thru-hiker is that almost all of them are way ahead by now. (I'm planning a flipflop: hike halfway north and then go to Maine and hike back)

Fashion note: men are wearing kilts on the trail (and some women are now wearing the kilts made for men). I don't ask the question.

I was resting with one of the Freedom Girls when she looked up the trail and said "here comes some bare-chested men. I may be 40 but I still enjoy eye candy." See why I'm sorry to lose them on the trail?

I'm feeling great. Tired but not too tired. I'm going much slower and going shorter distances. My brother says the turtle often wins the race. I hope this turtle can finish the race.

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