June 13
End: Stratton
Miles: 0.0
Total: 3856.7
It was raining outside in the morning. I lay in my sleeping bag in the office while laborers staying in the motel passed back and forth gathering their laundry. Finally I got up and packed up a few things, though most of my stuff was still in a loose pile in the television room.
I couldn’t motivate myself to walk out in the rain. Everyone else felt the same way, and I decided to take a full day off, knowing that the weather would be good for the rest of the week starting the next day. Once I was over that I could relax more.
Heading over to the grocery store, I bought some junk food, including one and a half quarts of three separate flavors of ice cream. It was time to show these Southbounders how to eat like a thru-hiker.
I had one of the ice creams and then headed down to the library along with Rachel, one of the Southbounders. I did not have any pressing business to take care of on the computer, but it was nice to use a real computer instead of surfing the Internet on my iPhone.
After a little while we headed back, and I finally picked up my mail at the post office. Back at the motel I went for the second ice cream and finished it off with some difficulty. The Southbounders were impressed, but they hadn’t seen anything yet.
The rest of the day was spent just lounging around the motel. The rain had stopped, but I wasn’t about to start hiking anywhere. I enjoyed the rest of the evening. We watched a movie or two and I saw some soccer from the Euro 2012 tournament. It took a bit of effort to put down my final quart and a half of ice cream, but I kept at it and got the job done. The Southbounders were so amazed they couldn’t speak (or were they just horrified?).
Rachel and I took a walk through mosquito-infested territory before the sun went down. After watching television until late at night, I went to bed in the television room, where most of the other hikers were sleeping. Parkside, Spiral, and Swivel had all showed up late so there wasn’t much room for everyone.