This was as close to a zero as we’re planning on having, at least for a while. Only six miles, almost all downhill, and then a stay at a bed and breakfast in Williamstown.
It began with a nice breakfast at Bascom Lodge – I had an omelette with all kinds of stuff in it (bacon, ham, spinach, tomato, etc) and with it came an endless supply of warm, fresh out of the oven blueberry muffins. Those were really the best part, I think I ate at least four and then snagged two more on the way out to eat later. We were ready to shortly after breakfast and booked it down the mountain as quickly as possible.
The first stop in town, before getting a ride to the B&B was the Stop & Shop grocery store for resupply. I stuck with most of the usual go to stuff this time – tortillas and pepperoni for lunch, pasta sides for dinner, bars and pastry type stuff for breakfast, and various candy for snacks. Once shopping was done we got a ride to River Bend Farm and found a very cool looking house. The place is a historic 1770 colonial farmhouse and the hosts were very friendly and glad to have hikers staying there. The biggest event of the afternoon was that I shaved my beard. Kind of weird to do it now I guess this close to Katahdin, but I never really became a fan of having one and was ready for a change. The reaction I got from Landon and Miranda (mostly Miranda) was priceless. Definitely don’t look like a thru-hiker any more!
Once everyone had cleaned up we walked back down into town to explore the shops and get some milkshakes at the ice cream shop. Landon is especially big on milkshakes, he tries to get at least one in every town and has yet to repeat a flavor on the AT (about 21 and counting). I think we all ended up buying at least one thing at the outfitter as well, and then we went back to River Bend Farm. I was met there by the one person I had been planning on meeting on the trail – a long time friend originally from World of Warcraft online. We’ve been gaming together for probably six years, talked on skype etc, but never met; turned out he lived close enough to the trail to drive over from New York state to meet for dinner. The four of us went to a local restaurant just up the road and spent a couple hours hanging out and eating seafood.