The next days, July 3rd and 4th, were filled with good things.

On the 3rd Cosmo and I were able to hitch into Andover thanks in large part to having a woman in our midst.
The men we run into on the backroads of Maine are a grizzled type with calloused hands courtesy of the work that one is likely to find in the isolated rural areas up here: logging and powerline welding and other similar heavy-lifting jobs. They’re friendly though, and don’t have that need to avoid other people that grows quietly in the rest of us who hail from cities and suburbias that are filled with the never ending buzz of social activity.
In short, they’re happy to spend time with other humans. Women doubly so. Roller triply so, with her dirty face and dirty hair, all swaddled in her sleeping bag; the perfect damsel in distress just waiting for her hero to come swooping in.
And this at the back of my mind as the first truck we see pulls to a halt: is there even such a thing as a female logger?
We three pitch our tents behind a restaurant called The Little Red Hen that night. The others choose to stay at a hostel within walking distance that’s a bit pricey for us and now at full-capacity besides.
There’s a pie fundraiser from 5-7 at the Hen. Five bucks for five slices. And on top of that the place is looked after by a big fellow who formerly thru-hiked with his sister under the joint name “The Fat Kids.” We go to sleep well fed.
The next morning we find another easy hitch, this time back to trail. Warmth then chill as we move at 50 mph over the cracked road between pine-shade and sunshine.
The rest of the day is mellow. A few days ago the group had just formed and roiled like water on a stove. Now, things are a simmer. The drama that accompanies novelty had died down and we were sliding back into the singleminded toil that the trail demands.
Wake, pack, eat, walk, eat, walk, tent, eat, sleep. The trail inevitably pulls the hiker back to this. And if you want to keep moving forward you can’t afford to waste energy and time on other things. Little is said because talk has become exhausting. But when little is said between a group of friends those few words take on greater weight than they would have before. Real talk.
Large joins me for lunch on a crude bench someone’s made that looks out from a mountainside. He’s in his mid-fifties and looks tired. If the trail is hard for me at 23 I have a hard time imagining what it must be like for him.
We have a conversation that probably entails less than fifty words, but at its end we hike on separately having been privileged to learn a bit more about each other.
I remember one of my creative writing teachers in college counseling the class against “word-vomit.” “Focus on saying enough, but not too much.” They had been vague instructions then. But I understood a little better now.
Whoever named the lake we passed later that day obviously had been given no such advice. Mooselookmeguntic Lake was huge and blue and awesome, despite the fact I that admired it from behind a highway guardrail.
That night I realized it was the 4th. I hadn’t even noticed.
Dill, the Canadian, brought sparklers.
Patriotism always seemed a little like a sham to me. Whenever it comes time to salute the flag I always feel a little like I’m just cheering for a sect of humans living between some meaningless set of wavy lines. I would be more of a patriot if America was more of a melting pot. But cue Trump, immaculate toupee and all, to make America great again with his wall. Some kind of twisted attempt to grow American xenophobia as if it were a new business venture. Nationalistic unification by keeping “outsiders” out and cutting off our international connection to the world at the root? Good plan.

Happy Independence Day everybody — Nomad