Miles: 13.4 (plus 0.2 sidetrip)
Day 2 and it seems like it's been a week. Today we walked over fairly easy terrain from Baxter State Park into the famous (or infamous?) 100-Mile Wilderness.
The morning started out well, with us leaving the friendly rangers of BSP. As noon drew near, though, the list of aching body parts grew. First my shoulders, then hips and then the feet. Oh, I wanted to sit down and just stay there for a very, very long time. We were hiking to Hurd's Brook lean-to, but on the way was a STORE! Never has the sight of cold Coca-Cola and those frosted apple pies that I never let myself eat at home looked so good. (And it's only been 2 days - sheesh, I'm weak!) The thought of the treat kept Kevin and I going (at this point, he was aching, too). When we finally got there, we took a nice, long, relaxing break alongside the store and an old logging road. My feet were screaming "thank you." And then they started screaming "No" as we got up to continue into the 100-Mile Wilderness.
Now that I'm here, it's pretty much what I expected - a wilderness :) The mosquitoes are bad, but our fly dope (hiker's word for insect repellent) is doing well at keeping them at bay. The lean-to is pretty crowded with hikers, but I was more than happy to pop up the tent in order to get away from the 'squitoes.
Tomorrow we're aiming for 11.5 miles to get to Rainbow Stream lean-to, but if we're hurting as badly as today, we may stop at a campsite that's along the way. I still can't believe this is just the beginning. My motto now is "Make it to Monson." I'm not even thinking of Connecticut.
Until tomorrow.
- Sore Bobo