July pre-camping Friday night
We invited the Krummels who had availability on short notice. The Friday night before departure, after work, after dinner, after cleaning up and vacuuming, when we began the 12 hour packing process, I asked if the boys got instructions on how to feed Will, (Gina and Phil's dog.) Judd said, "Will is sleeping over here." I launched into 13 follow up questions, none of which Judd could answer. He gave up trying, stating he really didn't think about the details. SO, I called up Phil and asked him my 13 follow-up questions: has Will ever slept over? Where does he sleep? Will he run away if the boys go out in the yard? What if there's a cat/a squirrel/another dog? Did Phil know my two boys weren't home all day? etc.... Phil correctly answers my first 4 questions so I agreed to have Will over. As Kelcy and Ryley were out for the night and I was not apt to see them before my departure in the morning, I left them both an apology note on their pillow and said I'd see them Tuesday. Phil, more cleverly, left the boys big checks to assure they would walk and feed the dog.
Saturday morning
The Krummels arrived a bit worried that ALL THEIR camping gear would not fit in Judd's new little truck will ALL OUR camping gear. It was a tight squeeze but Judd is master of knot-tying. We started with Will's orientation to the Thompson kitchen (i.e. where the cat food is, where to poop) followed by Phil yelling out the front door for Gina to come clean up the orientation. It was nice to all travel together as Judd's air-conditioned cab is pretty spacious. On our way out of town we stopped at the Green Bean for brunch snacks and Ryley served us. It was a hopping scene and some grumpy old people left because they couldn't envision waiting 12 minutes. Good thing we're such hip young people.
We had lunch in Millinocket at the ATCafe (lots of Appalachian Trail art and t-shirts on the walls making Judd nostalgic before he even gets on the trail. ) Planning for our arrival at Daicey Pond, I asked Gina if she would pretend to do sign language for me if I pretended to be a deaf-mute when the Ranger-nazi made us sit through Baxter orientation (like the ranger did with Judd, Kelcy, Ryley and I last time.) It turned out, when we got to Daicey, we had a kinder, gentler roaming ranger: Gardiner. Phil seemed to think Gardiner had a thing for Judd. We did offer Gardiner to have pre-dinner snacks with us. He ate some kohlrabi, saying that his dad called kohlrabi "the lobster of vegetables." But he preferred to cook for himself. Phil had an entire dinner in a steam pot: shrimp,sausage,corn and potatoes. Gina had organic banana cream pudding in a pot. Gourmet dinner with a view! We stayed in the cabin called MT VIEW and were 4 feet from the pond: Mt. Katahdin** and it's reflection, right in front of us. 
Having packed after 3 days of 89 degrees and 89 percent humidity weather, I brought 3 changes of clothes a day of short sleeves and sundresses for 89 degree weather. It was 10 degrees cooler by day and 20 degrees cooler by night but I had only one pair of long pants and one long sleeve shirt. But the Daicey cabins come with beds so you can double up your sheets/towels and still be warm, with firewood for campfires in the evenings.Sunday
Gina and Judd hiked Sentinel mountain but the bridge to get there was out so Phil drove them over to Kidney Pond. They figured it wouldn't be so bad to wade across the stream on the return trip. I did "homework" on the library deck--reading policies for an hour in a rocker, trying not to be distracted by little kids going canoeing or kayaking. Phil busied himself reading about the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame. When we were ready for eleven-sies, we rode into town for, ostensibly "ice and coffee" but really to find cell-service. Phil recently became obsessed with "selfies"on his last heritage tour-- a self-portrait with a smart phone so one could photo-document wherever they were. With proper cell service, one could also post the pic on Facebook for instant sharing with friends. We had been shooting up selfies all along the trip but had been unable to transmit. We attempted joining wi-fi at the store in Millinocket. We were told to try the end of the dock. We got nothing, neither his Verizon or my AT&T. We gave up and went back to camp.
I don't know who decided to spike the watermelons that had been cooling in the pond. Thus, we invented the "Baxter Bomb"- a gin-infused watermelon. While contemplating how to serve it, we noticed a helicopter overhead. We gave conjecture as to whether Judd or Gina might be being heli-ported to the nearest hospital, but they showed up at camp intact, albeit wet, at about 3:45-- a bit later than expected. They had stories to tell of the views and wading in the stream the wrong direction and getting reoriented. Gina asking Judd, "Juddly, any good news yet" several times along the backtracking. I would have sounded way more irritated asking Judd that.
Phil started to have a vigorous reaction to the quadruple deer fly bites on his hand and we invented an antidote that, with time, calmed him down--the 1, 2, 3 antidote:
1 stiff gin and tonic
2 benadryl
3 ibuprofen
 |
| Judd, fishing the first night |
Dinner was Judd's AT mashed potatoes with a chicken, onion, pepper saute, and pasta salad with every left over fresh veggie. We had strawberry shortcake for dessert.
Banangrams got a bit competitive--Zen was believed not to be a proper noun; ab was not believed to be a legal 2-letter word. We took a foray to the library and couldn't even find a dictionary. We admired a fishing boy in a canoe for a while. He even caught a fish while we watched and we promised to send him pics: becurtis@yahoo.com
We saw two small flickering lights on the mountain about 9pm and had some interesting discussion about what a stranded hiker vs. an injured hiker would look like at 9pm on a mountain. We went to bed without alerting the rangers.
It rained a lot before dawn. The rain noise was outdone only by the loud bullfrog interchange, anonymous cabin snoring, buzzing mosquito in the cabin, chipmunk wars over the lost trail mix and morning birds bickering.
Monday
Ranger Andrew Vietze http://andrewvietze.com/about/ told us there HAD been a couple of hikers who spent the night on the mountain. He said rangers do 6-8 rescues a year. Usually they just hike up and "feed em' and beat em'" to get them down. A couple times a year they get a blackhawk to helicopter lift someone off. Andrew spends half his time ranger-ing and half his time as an author. After animated discourse, we decide Phil had a thing for Andrew.
None of us wanted to hike Double Top and everyone was okay with that. We drove to Abol Bridge camp ground and took a mosey through the woods out of the park to the Golden Road where we saw some white water rafters from the bridge and where we got ice cream and stories from some AT through-hikers.
We drove to the Ledges and had some pretty amazing, high-water, sunny swimming. Judd discovered his camp store, a 10 minute walk to Nesowadnehunk. I just love to say that word. Phil wondered, "I can hardly imagine being a moose" after Judd described what micro-wildlife lives in a moose's hide. We all got a visual of Phil looking up and to the left at an imaginary bubble over his head with a cartoon Phil-head on a mangy moose. the real Phil did take some great pics of the moose we saw at Stump Pond.
Phil mastered the fire starting since he and I had axed some wood into kindling during our afternoon. Gina and I did camp crafts: colored stained glass mandalas.* Dinner was Judd's linguini, sausage and Caesar salad--s'mores for dessert with the most massive marshmallows you can imagine.
Tuesday
Packing up to leave camp always goes faster than packing up to go to camp. We were starting to wear a little thin of selfie-competitions and yet it went on and on. We dodged massive paper trucks on the Golden Road to the Gulf Hagas dam. Judd gave the Krummels a tour while I sun-bathed, having heard the history/engineering lecture previously. We admired Kokadjo: population "not many." We lunched at our camp on First Roach Pond and read the journals about when Malindi and Rachel fished and hiked there. Phil declared, "my soul is satisfied" and we looked on with an "oh, brother" look. We had ice cream in Greenville and an otherwise uneventful car trip home Somewhere along the way, we started to get cell service and started posting to Facebook or Instagram and started receiving news of the world and the family after being incommunicado for 4 days. Rachel had had a great trip up Katahdin and the Knife's Edge. Malindi had had super fun at the Color Run, the happiest 5K on the planet. Kelcy and Ryley did not lose Will.
The trip was deemed a great success.
Phil's Selfie show:
WILDLIFE SIGHTED
deer (twice)
moose (three)
bunnies
red squirrel
chipmunk
partridge
bullfrog (= Bruno_)
caterpillar
wild strawberries
tadpoles the size of your hand
Trail names:
Benadryl Phil
Charmin(less) Gina (ask her why)
Water-mellonie
Spud-Judd
*
**the highest mountain in Maine at 5,268 feet and the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail
