A Limp in the Woods (Day 138)

An Appalachian Trail Tale

Day 138: Friday, August 9th, 2013
Imp Shelter/Campsite to Hwy 2/Gorham = 7 miles

Miles to date: 1,888

Insect Aside

Ye olde crippled zipper on me decade-olde tent is, for the time being, a non-issue. Inconse-tent-ial. Ensconce-sequential. A can of worms, past its sell-by date. It’s too glacial for the mosquitoes anymore, at least during their night shift, and at least at the higher elevations. Maine, with its low-lying land, may present problems. I hope to find out.

Upon waking, I rolled over and smiled at the gaping aperture at the mothership’s fore, knowing it didn’t matter. But then I watched a zig-zagging bombardier beetle strut up and around the OUT OF ORDER sign, into my domain. Momentary panic. Time to shore up the boat, or build a moat.

“Household invaders,” exterminators call ‘em. (The household’s the invader.) Stink bugs, we called ‘em as kids; the bombardier beetle has an internal chemical reactor, a nano nuclear power plant. It mixes chemicals that--I’m not making this up--explode. The insect directs its hiney toward a potential victim many times its size, before shooting out a boiling, foul-smelling fusillade of gaseousness that comes replete with a distinctive popping or cracking sound. 

But this talent is nothing new. I am reminded of my old college-aged roommates, who, like me, were not in college at the time. (“C.U. later,” we Boulderites laughed, but such school of thought didn’t have any of us graduate.) It also reminds me of many a thru-hiker, myself included, naturally. Or unnaturally.

I unpeeled the sticky zipper on my lie-awake bag. (That zipper works every time about half the time; unfortunately, unzipping it is no easy task once claustrophobia has implanted itself.) The bug quickly turned back for safer ‘scapes, having had a taste of its own medicine. When it comes to chemical warfare, few can touch the thru-hiker. Few’d want to.

Our peregrinations would commence belatedly; the recent spate of nippleyness keeps us on elected lockdown much of the morning. Each morning. “As much as I hate the cold,” I yelled over to Captain, “it sure as heck beats that sticky hot stuff.” It began raining before I finished my sentence. Our sentence had begun.

“TGIF!” I sighed, as we packed up.

A pall of pale ground-bound clouds, a sallow muzzle, smothered all but the nearest of views. Nearest, as in those within arm’s reach.

“It’s Friday?” Captain inquired.

“I think so. No difference though, huh?”

“Not that I know of.”

Spoken like a true wild man. We’ve been out for so long now the numbers on the calendar have lost all meaning. If they ever had any. Ours is a weekend without end. We no longer keep watch on the watch. We don’t dread Mondays. We exist beyond time. 

“The last four months has been a weird few years,” Captain mused.

We seafaring landlopers would scramble fast and frantically throughout the morning, or what was left of it. We did the same as afternoon approached, aiming for Highway 2. There the hope was to get to nearby Gorham, an aspiring tourist town not far off the margins of our maps. Would anyone in his or her or his-her right mind dare pick up some capsized hikers? Dubious, but it gave us hope, and hope was all we had on this most dolorous of days. Although the Appalachians may not be The Geography of Hope, as Stegner so worded the west, hope allowed us to cope.

The Appalachians: The Geography of Cope.

It felt like we were being waterboarded. Sheets of fatally cold rain pelted us, while the trail--too thin to plow, too thick to float down--made sure of it we were complete messes, physically and emotionally.

We caught a cussing, cumbersome Hangman, the one-man wrecking crew. We were near the newly-raging Rattle River, an hour before we neared the not-so-raging highway. Our chances of securing a ride looked more dismal than the weather. If one hitchhiker is considered a crowd--as one often is--than three are altogether too many. Most motorists would say three too many. Most motorists are not wrong.

But, as Appalachian Trail kismet would have it, the first vehicle pulled over and offered a ride. Or its driver did, anyway. A former thru-hiker, he was familiar with our story. It had been his story, now history.

“Ned Ludd’s the name(1), giving’s the game,” said the thirty-ish year-old redbeard. We piled in and immediately shared laughs, as only soaked, smelly, war-torn comrades can. The laughter was only interrupted by Ludd’s occasional shouting of helpful instructions to other motorists: “LEARN HOW TO DRIVE, YOU (BLEEPITY BLEEP)!!!”

He was giving all right(!), though the windows prevented him from being heard, except by those of us squirming inside the car. Ludd drove like a man possessed, catching and passing--or trying to pass--every vehicle on the road.

“LOOK AT THIS (BLEEPITY BLEEP)!!! WHAT A JACKASS! USE YOUR (BLEEPITY) TURN SIGNAL, ASS-WIPE!!!”

We tore into town in minutes. We were soon warm and dry, and soon bored. 

Which is worse, I wondered as I sat on my caved-in bed at the Hiker’s ‘Paradise’ Crack House Hostel, bedlam or boredom? 

Hard to say. Hard to say. I think Tolstoy knew best...

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence.

I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.

I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.”

Life just ain’t life without adventure, without risk, without desire, without bedlam, without contradiction. Without question.

I think.

Anyway, back to now. The hostel owner has a map of the world on the wall. It’s not actual size. It has pins of all the places visitors have come from. Two hikers came from each upper corner of the map. This is good; their origins help hold the map up. By the looks of it, one of the two living in the upper reaches of the world even claims to reside right in the ocean(!). Ha! Then again, that far north he or she could live in an igloo; it’s prolly year-round ice there. I have nothing against igloo residers. I’m guessing it was warmer there today than it was in this neck of the woods.

My fortune from tonight's Gorham Dy-Nasty buffet

"Foot"note 1: No doubt a trailname, but a good one as far as they go.