We had a great breakfast at Welch’s in Gorham, then headed out to the local Walmart. While everyone else headed off to find four and a half days of food for the trail, N stopped by the optical center to see if he could lower his stress over possibly losing an eyeglass lens again. Several new screws and a thorough once over later, the young technician had him convinced his potential glasses problems were all resolved. N then joined X in the hunt for lightweight food, enough to get us to Andover, Maine. We walked out of Walmart with too much weight, so that means we will be doing heavy snacking for the rest of the day. We’re spending the afternoon seeing what we can send home to lighten our loads for the last 300 miles. We’re taking the communal approach with things like water filtration and cooking, so we will (for example) carry one stove and a backup fuel canister for the group rather than deal with cooking gear individually.

The highlight of the day will be a visit from our friend & neighbor “across the back fence,” Susan Adams, who is flying up from Mississippi this afternoon. We’re not sure how much day hiking we’ll be able to do with her, given the dearth of road crossings on the AT from Gorham to Andover, but even if we can’t do that, or get her to give us some slack-packing assistance, it will be great to see Suuz, and this support of our hike should certainly wrap up the “AT Neighbor of Year” award for her.

Kleenex and her sister have moved over from their campground, and are taking advantage of the sunshine to get their tent, etc., dried out. We should all be ready to get back out on the AT in the morning.