Pinkham Notch Visitor’s Center 1874.9 (zero miles, 849.5 total miles)
It was a very hot evening in the hostel, and it took a while to fall asleep. I woke up quite sweaty around 5:30, and dozed till around 7AM.
Catchup and I sorted our laundry out, and Paul was kind enough to bend his rule of a strict 9AM checkout, and said we could hang out till whenever, since it was raining.
Our Airbnb check in time was 2PM, so we had some time to kill. We rummaged through the well stocked hiker box in the common area, and found some food and normal essentials like sunscreen, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, etc.
We walked down the street to Road Hawg BBQ Swine Dining for breakfast. It was 10AM when we got there, both famished. I ordered French toast and bacon, and sampled some of Catchup’s biscuits and gravy and jalapeño cheddar cornbread.
Over mimosas, I texted Sunshine to see how she was doing. It had been determined that she’d gotten strep throat and a mild concussion the other day, but was on antibiotics now.
She’d had to put her dog, Finn, down yesterday instead of today. She sounded okay, but my heart broke for her. We talked about her carrying some of Finn’s ashes and sprinkling them somewhere on trail as a memorial to him.
I then found out that there had been a three car fire on top of Mount Washington yesterday morning. We had been camped very close by, and were surprised we hadn’t heard of it, especially having summited the day prior to the fire.
Back at the hostel, we worked on an itinerary for the next five days, and planned out our resupply. We’d be taking The Barn shuttle to Walmart at 5:30 to get food and some phone accessories I needed.
Halfway arrived at the hostel, and I hung out with him and Coastie while Catchup called his parents. The sun had come out and the rain had stopped, and it was shaping up to be a very pleasant day.
When it was almost 2:00, we walked over to the building with the Airbnb, a large Victorian house on the river. We found out later from Paul that it used to be a river rafting business, and was located about a mile from the hostel.
It was a charming apartment, with plenty of space, a full kitchen, and river access. After we settled in, we watched a little TV, made shopping lists for resupply, and tried to get an Uber to Walmart.
We wanted to get the shopping done earlier than 5:30, but it turned out that there weren’t any Ubers around. After waiting for a while, we we walked back to the hostel.
We saw Pineapples at The Barn, who I’d kept in touch with since I’d last seen him in New York, and who we planned to get dinner with that evening.
The Walmart shuttle required two vehicles to take everyone, and over the course of an hour I was able to find all the accessories I needed for my phone, and get a five day resupply to get to Andover, Maine.
Paul let us keep most of our resupply at The Barn, and pick it up when we cross Route 2 in a couple days, which was very nice of him. He had gone above and beyond for us, which was really appreciated, and we could tell how hard he works at both the hostel and the B&B attached to it.
After repackaging and sorting out food, we took a group of hikers with us to the Pub House, where we’d been the night before. Halfway, Pineapples, and Coastie came with, as well as a SOBO that we’d met at The Barn.
The SOBO’s name was Skip, and he was a very affable man. He said he’d done the 20 mile slackpack from Pinkham to Route 2, and he’d not known how difficult it was going to be.
He hadn’t made it to the road, but had gone to the last shelter before it. He’d arrived at midnight, without any of his sleep gear, and had to curl up in the corner of the shelter till morning.
Dinner was amazing again, and Catchup and I got the house special pizza, which was topped with steak and mashed potatoes, and had the best pizza crust both of us thought we’d ever had.
Coastie ordered a spicy chocolate gelato that had his eyes watering like crazy, and we all tried some and were entertained by the real kick it had. I split a slice of chocolate cake with Catchup, which was quite amazing.
After leaving the restaurant, we only had a two minute walk to the Airbnb, while everyone else headed back to The Barn. It had been a good day, and I was glad most of our chores were out of the way so we could relax tomorrow.