Mileage: zero!
I slept in until 7am after a very restful slumber to find the smell of coffee brewing downstairs. I grabbed a cup and plopped down into the chair next to the fireplace thinking about what I'd do with my day off. I decided that I definitely needed to do laundry and eat pie. If anything else happened that'd be great. I talked with the other hikers and we planned to get breakfast with Nita (owner of the house) and do the tour of town at 10am.
Before that I washed my laundry by hand, washing and rinsing my clothes five time before the water didn't turn black when I kneaded the clothes back and forth ...
it was still light brown by the end, but I didn't want to waste water. I hung them up to dry and we set off for breakfast after a group photo. Notice the toasters in the background ... I was actually worried the night before how I'd find it ... silly me!
Before breakfast we took the tour of town, the highlights of which included the windmill museum (which also sold pie ... I got pecan), and also one of the antennae for the Very Long Baseline Array, a National Science Foundation initiative which allows scientists to study distant galaxies and stars. The high resolution images they get from this array could spot a football on the moon!
After that we had breakfast which really is a subjective term for hikers. For instance, I had pancakes, grilled
cheese, French fries, and coffee. Afterwards, I realized from the butter wrappers that I must have used seven or eight of them myself ... oops! My mother would have been horrified by the lack of real maple syrup, but I didn't mind the corn sugar. And who am I kidding, my mom would have brought her own anyways (seriously, she does this anytime she goes out for breakfast).
After breakfast I said farewell to the other hikers who were hiking out and stayed at the cafe to take care if some internet business. Later in the day, while I was on the phone with my dad, my old friend Natty showed up, after having hiked 25 miles that day! I showed him around the house, made each of us a pizza, and we each had a beer. So good.
Later in the evening, a little after 8pm, another hiker, Problem Bear, showed up while I was peeing outside. He looked pretty out of it and said he'd just hiked close to 30 miles that day, so I gave him the royal treatment as well, fixing him up a pizza and sharing the rest of my second dinner with him. I also got a fire going in the the stove to make it real cozy! I had wanted to read all day, but by the time I sat in front of the fire, I could only read a few pages before I was exhausted.
I went to sleep happy I could return the favor to other hikers as the others did for me the night before. I sure will miss Pie Town!
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