Small Bites and Penjamin (Day 133)

We started the morning with some hard rain, which makes you want to stay in your tent all day, but there’s no rest for the wicked. Some section hikers ended their trip here and left us some of their food, which comes in handy, because it’s going to take us one more day than expected to get to Hanover.

It’s always fun to see how the trail has been made accessible. Sometimes they install rebar in the rocks, sometimes they carve steps and this time they just put a ladder and called it a day.  

The lookout

Around lunchtime we hiked into a very cool shelter called “The Lookout”. You can sleep inside, but also climb the roof with a cool view. The entire day has been foggy and wet, so we had little hope, but it started to clear up a bit!

Small Bites picked up a water color paint set in Rutland and tried it out for the first time. He was calmly painting the beautiful mountains, but we needed his help. My dad’s shoes are already showing signs of falling apart and we don’t want to have the same situation as in Pennsylvania, where we had to take an entire day to find and buy an emergency pair. Outfitters don’t always have the right shoe in the right size, so it was important to order them online and have them shipped.

A cool little luxury item

Small Bites selflessly helped my dad out and a new pair is on its way! But, the clouds came back and the beautiful mountains Small Bites was painting are behind them now, before he could finish painting them. I’m sorry Small Bites! Next time you’ll have some more painting time, I promise.  

The plan for the day was to hike 14 miles into a campsite, but we didn’t account for the water situation. It would be a 4,4 mile water carry with 4 liters of water each. That’s not the most fun, so we decided to stay in the shelter before and take some time off for the rest of the night.

Welcome to the tramily Penjamin!

We got to the shelter and Small Bites got super excited, because he saw a bowling pin in the shelter. “I know this bowling pin, It’s famous on Instagram!”. Apparently a hiker in Warwick, New York saw a bowling pin in the trash can and decided it should have a more glamorous life than the landfill. It’s name is Penjamin and it should be carried to Katahdin through the hands of north-bound thru-hikers.

The Instagram page had around 100 followers, not something I would call “Instagram famous”, but apparently Small Bites was one of the followers. It was immediately clear that Small Bites would help this four pound weighing bowling pin achieve its goal.