This was, all-in-all, a pretty relaxing day. We decided to hang out at WHL, and stay for lunch. It was beautiful and sunny by the lake, I felt like I was on vacation on Cape Cod. We lounged in the hammock, laid our moist gear out to dry and generally recovered. Drank a lot of water. The WHL advertises "high-fat, high-calorie" foods, and they're not joking. I ordered a 1 lb. burger and Dana ordered a pizza, which we thought might be personal-sized, but was full-sized, large and well made. We stuffed ourselves. We'd also eaten breakfast there, with Kaleigh and Brian and a father-son team from Florida who were flirting with the idea of being collectively trail-named "Trainwreck", which I think is a great trail name for anyone, and could be shortened to T-dubs. The father was in rough shape, staggering about with red and chaffed hands and face, like he got into poison ivy or has a sun allergy. But they had a killer attitide, and we were all surprised when his son as spotted kayaking around the lake after breakfast, when the rest of us barely had the strength to stand up straight. Kids, we joked. (ED: he's 21, and his trail name is Pineapple). So we ate, and drank water, and recovered from the previous day's slog. We laid in the sun, I walked about and took arty pictures of the grounds and sheds and nick-knacks that live here. We resupplied a bit, after realizing that we were burning through our snacks pretty fast. I bought 6 snickers, Dana got a Nutty-bar and some snickers as well. We bought camp soap and washed our clothes in a large metal bucket, and dried them on a line in the sun. Finally it was time to go, and Linda packed up our remaining four slices of pizza, "calzone-style", in a ziploc, we took a couple of leftover blueberry pancakes, wrote a short entry in their register, and loaded our packs back down to the pier. Linda is a font of knowledge about the trail; I'm guessing just from talking to hikers for 15 years - I don't think she's ever hiked the AT). I looked at a book of photos that people had sent back to WHL when they were done with the trail, mostly Katahdin summit pics from NOBO's (Northbounders), but a few from Springer Mountain. I hope I can send them one too. Bill dropped us off closer to the trail in the boat (he became annoyed when the branch he was using as a rudder had become un-bungeed from the outboard motor) and wished us luck. We were back on the AT in a few minutes and put away and easy 6 miles to Antlers campsite, 1:45 to 4:45. We got a late start, so we decided not to go all the way to Cooper Brook. Kaleigh and Brian left us a note saying they went on, so they're a day ahead of us now. Hopefully we'll see them at Shaw's. The hiking was easy but super-buggy, we put on DEET and head-nets. Antlers is nice, right on the lake, empty except for us. Slept from dusk to dawn. Looks like a lovely, breezy day ahead! :) -Ups
Mostly sunny, upper 70s, humid in the woods
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