"When I was young, I admired clever people...

...Now that I am old, I admire kind people."
-Abraham Joshua Heschel

July 6, 2001

Today I stayed at The Cabin, run by Earl and Marge (Honey and Bear).  Earl is away maintaining the Trail at White Cap and Wilson Valley.

Honey and Bear are the nicest people you will meet.  I needed to go into Andover to restock on food, and planned on taking an old pickup truck that made available for hikers to use.  Unfortunately, I flooded it.

Earl was back around this time, and he handed me the keys to his nice Ford F-350.  His one stipulation was that I wave to everyone I saw, because otherwise someone would be offended that "Earl" had not waved at them (seeing his truck).

There is a couple staying here named Ken and Beth (Ladder and Stuck Tiva) and also a friend of theirs named Mia.

Ken stayed here through a winter after his thruhike with their dog Kramer.  He met Beth on the Trail and they both lived in Manchester, NH and ended up married.

Mia worked with Beth at a college, did social work for awhile and is now headed for law school in Concord.  She is extremely beautiful and a very nice young woman.

The four of us played Pictionary 'til midnight and laughed like crazy.  I had so much fun.

My sides literally hurt from all the laughing we did.  It is always rewarding to have so much fun without beer or drugs or anything like that, because you can remember it all so fresh in the morning.