Aw man!

I know I said I wouldn't post any more once I hit Maine, but things are happening! Things I should keep you up to breast of! Abreast of? Whatever! And I know how diligent and crazy my fan base is! Can't keep them waiting!

I'm in Andover, Maine. Maine....MAINE!...Maine....Maine. I crossed the border two days ago in the rain. Since leaving Gorham, New Hampshire it has rained, and been sunny only one day. But boy have things been.....have things been. It's very wet here. And lush, and mossy, and full of spruce and conifer trees. The terrain is very difficult. The first part of Maine is called the Mahoosuc Range, and contains the famous Mahoosuc Notch. This is called the "hardest mile on the A.T." It wasn't so much hard, as it was fun... maybe the hardest mile to scramble 5 feet without taking another picture. There were two particular sections where you literally had to crawl on your belly through a hole in the boulders, and it was like a rebirth.

Hard, as usual, to describe things.

This is definitely a remote part of the earth. As we were waiting on the side if this road today until we finally got a ride, in the most bone-chillingly cold drizzle I've ever felt in my life, I noticed how there were no telephone poles, no electrical/telephone wires, no road signs, just trees....for maybe 10 miles, then houses started appearing, then signs that said "Moose Crossing," and finally Andover, which is one street, a general store and diner, and a gas station. No stop lights. I'm here at this little inn with a few other people I know and some bluegrass musicians. They all picked some songs on the porch this evening and we sang and drank Budweiser.

Maine Maine Maine....no rain no pain no Maine....

I'm in Maine. Isn't that funny? Here I am. My shoes are full of holes and my knees hurt and I still think a lot about the same old things but here I am! And it does feel different. The sign at the border, which was in the middle of the woods, said "MAINE. The Way Life Should Be." What a great motto. However, I still feel just as far as I always have from Katahdin. There is never an easy point to this; as if you arrive at some point and you can say, "YES! Now it's easy! Now I KNOW I can make it!" I probably won't feel that way until I'm on top of Katahdin. Maine hurts. It's wild and remote and rainy and rugged as hell.

And this is country where there's lots of logging trucks that drive by you really fast, and locals have told me that last winter they got over 200 inches of snow.

I know I'm in Maine, and I know that by looking at a map or my guide book that this trail reaches its northern-most point in less than 270 miles. But I still don't feel that. Maybe I'm used to things as they are, where the most serious decisions are, "I'll sleep here!" or "This looks like a good place to get water!" And that's all there is to worry about. But I know this thing as anything else will come to its conclusion.

Something was said about direction. Out here there's so much direction in life. It's so simple: you walk that way, for maybe 5 or 6 months. North. Voila. It's a steady progression. In "normal life" you don't have that. You go around, and around and around some more, in circles. Hopefully I'll keep some progression going when I go home.

Thanks Mel for the advice, and thanks to all of you. Man! and a big hello to Amy! Too bad I never caught you all. I often think of this blog as being too ego-centered, like "Look at me!" and it doesn't promote me to write much because I hate always starting sentences with "I." I hope you all know you are with me.

Sooo.....I don't know when I'll post again. The pace has certainly slowed down, and I figure I may write again in this town called Rangeley. After that, it's a straight shot to Monson, and then the 100-mile wilderness baby, where there's only 3 logging roads. And then Katahdin, which means "the Greatest Mountain" in Abenaki-Penobscot.

Life seems to be full of things that start and last for a minute and then finish and new things start and last and finish. Especially the case in relationships. I felt it intensely right before I came home from France. But the earth still turns. It comes into you and back out. What a great time. I'm tired of looking for things in a lot of ways. You don't always have to drive yourself crazy looking for something. I think before this whole thing started, maybe back before I started traveling, I was dying to get away from home and look for something. And you don't really have to hike over 2,000 miles to find something profound or special or enlightening. Some do, but that's just how it is for them. It certainly is an investment of time in yourself, which is definitely good. But as trite as it may sound, a lot of what is really nice is already there in front of you. I could walk up and down this whole trail for my entire lifetime and perhaps never get to the bottom of something. There's so much to see and think about. Gotta let it come in and let it go back out. Blah blah blah. Hunter's done rambling. Up we go!