Blue and I stayed at Ruthie’s Place in Bethel. It’s a small motel right in town and has such charm. Ruthie has owned it for 50 years and loves serving hikers. She does your laundry, free of charge and has a beautiful flower garden next to the property. She raised her daughter at the motel and is someone super special. The community around this trail is like no other place.

The Bakery opened at 7am so we walked over with our packs and had special coffee and my most favorite, egg sandwich. Homespun picked us up at 7:30am and took us back to the trail. The men were also in the car but they are now a day behind, being they took a Zero with Norman. We dropped them off first, said our goodbyes and Blue and I headed north. We had a good day ahead of us with much climbing and a little bit of rain. Our typical day on the trail.

We hit the ground around 8:30am being it’s a much longer drive than the ten miles we hiked yesterday. The trail was nice with roots and rocks and some amount of dirt. Our morning workout was getting up and over Wyman Mountain. It wasn’t much of a challenge as some of the peaks we’ve been doing the past few days. We ran into Peace, a section hiker who Homespun describe to a tee! He is petite and small enough to put in her pocket! When I saw him, I thought to myself, I bet that’s the hiker Peace who Homespun picked up. Sure enough it was.

Peace is from New Jersey and has been section hiking the AT for years. They call them Myths, Multi-Year Hikers. He is small but mighty. He stops quite a lot to take pictures and we had much to talk about. He was quite interested in the smoke we had with the fires in Canada, which has completely subsided in the past two weeks. Hopefully everything is under control and maybe the rain we’ve had helped to douse the fires.

Blue and I headed out after our lunch on the ledge, and within a few minutes the rain started. This time the weather guessers called in perfectly. At noon you’ll have showers. We put on our rain jackets and continued onward. We meandered down into a ravine to Sawyer Brook. It was a significant river crossing but managed to get across without getting wet.

After the Brook-River crossing, we headed up Moody Mountain. The rain had stopped but once we were climbing rocks again, Old Moody started raining. Back on with the jackets and the climb. Moody was a tough climb. It’s fairly steep in areas and has ladders and metal rungs to get up the wet and slimy rocks. It took close to an hour to climb up and over Moody, and once on top, it had nice views of Andover and across the vast forest in the Ellis River Valley.

Blue called our ride and Kitchen Sink was on his way. We had a mile of a steep downhill and needed to be there by 3:30pm so we could get to the Post Office before it closed. USPO hours are a bit limited in these small towns. We headed down and the last thing was a good river crossing. Black Brook Creek was wide and deep. Being I was going to the PO for a new pair of shoes, I chose to walk into the water and not attempt to hop skip across the boulders. I submerged my funky old shoes, socks and made my way through the river to meet Blue and Kitchen Sink on the other side.

We took the half an hour road trip to Andover, stopped at the PO and made a quick side trip to the local market. Other hikers including Nails were there, and we all jumped back into the Van and drove to The Cabin.

The Cabin has tons of history. Honey and Bear (who passed away five years ago) have been a mainstay on the Appalachian Trail since 1999. Honey is 91 years old and still runs this Cabin. She had 14 guests, cooked dinner of Spaghetti, Salad, Sweet Corn on the Cob, and Rolls along with Brownies and Ice Cream for dessert. She told stories of her and Bear hiking the trails together. Her brother being the inspiration of Mahoosuk Notch and the first male to complete the AT, Earl Shaffer spending time at the cabin. She has a dining room table that she asks guests to sign, on the bottom, unless you are 80 or older, she’ll flip it on its side. She’s a kick and has amazing wit and charm. Once again, the AT Community shines bright.