Sept 18

Magic in Rangeley

We woke up this morning to chilly temperatures and misty fog.  After about 2 miles of hiking, we came to another road crossing.  Needing to resupply, we hitched a ride into Rangeley, 9 miles away.  First we grabbed a bite to eat at a diner.  Then we went to a small gear shop in the middle of this small resort community.  The sky turned cloudy and grey, the wind started to pick up, and a cool rain began to fall.  One of the workers at the shop said he had some ice cream to give away if we wanted it.  Over the past weekend, Rangeley had hosted its first annual hiker party, celebrating its official designation as a 'trail town'.  We were a couple days too late, but we at least scored some free pints of locally made 'muddy boots' ice cream.  We had hardly seen any other hikers along the trail in the past few days.  Many of the hikers that were in Andover the same days as us had yellow blazed to Rangeley to make it to the festival.  Our new, large crew that I've been hiking with through Maine thus far, has started calling itself "the league of extraordinary hikers', since we haven't been skipping any sections.  While we were sitting outside, eating our ice cream, a van pulled up.  Driving was Miss Janet.  She'd been bouncing around hiker towns all summer, following the bubbles of hikers northward, offering rides and assistance along the way.  We were just milling around, about to head to the grocery store to resupply, when Old Tomato came running back to us from the gift shop across the street.  He had run into an old friend from high school, and her mom, who were in town on vacation.  Mary Ann had a property on another lake, about half an hour outside of town, and invited all of us to come stay with them for the night.  How we all fit into her Volvo station wagon was a Tetris-like feat of puzzle piece engineering.  Mary Ann was driving, daughter Sarah in the front seat.  Behind was their dog, Atom Bomb, Old Tomato, Rainbow Eyes, Apache, Yogi, BooBoo, and myself.  Five hikers in the back seat, and two of us in the cargo area riding along with several bags of groceries, jugs of water, and a few of our backpacks.  We had the other five backpacks up on the roof, strapped on using one of our bear bag ropes.  Turning off the highway, we headed down a dirt road, passing by a gate house.  We were now just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Canadian border.  We had seen a large SUV in town earlier, marked with 'Border Patrol'.  Come to think of it, that's the only law enforcement we've seen so far in Maine.  After about 10 miles of bouncing around down the dirt road, we arrived at their cabin, on Kennebago Lake.    It was a beautiful log home, decorated and furnished picture perfectly, like right out of an LL Bean catalog.  A huge moose head hung on the wall, over looking the living room, and was flanked by two deer heads.  Our hostess made up a tray of fresh vegetables, sliced up some fresh kalamata olive bread, and filled a dish with a mixture of olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping.  Magnums of red wine were opened, and we snacked on these delicious hors'd'oeuvres while we waited for dinner.  I sat back in one of the plush chairs, sipping from my balloon glass of wine.  It was like being back home at one of the university's hob-knobby receptions.  We had an awesome meal of grilled steak, grilled chicken, sauteed vegetables, and mashed potatoes.  After dinner, we watched a movie or two, and played card games outside on the porch.

Closing in on Santa's domain.