AT Day 103 - Hanover, New Hampshire

27th July

9 miles

Bushcamp (1743.9) to Bushcamp (1752.9)

As I had no phone or watch, I’m not sure what time I woke this morning or what time I set off hiking. In fact, without my watch I wasn’t sure how many miles I covered in the morning. It’s a strangely liberating feeling to give myself up to the modern world and just put one foot in front of the other. But I was on a schedule to meet Earlybird in downtown Hanover to pick up my new phone.

I emerged from my pine forest on Elm Street. A place where every second house has a cooler box out the front for hikers. I grabbed a morning coke out of one cooler box and a friendly local stopped me to offer home cooked cake slices. A couple of hikers exited from one of the houses where the kind folks put them up for the night. What a kind and generous neighbourhood.

From Elm Street onwards it was a road walk or should I say footpath walk to Hanover. Footpaths in rural USA are for the most part non existent. People must walk on the road or more commonly jump in their car, even if they are only driving 100 yards.

It was on this roadwalk that I crossed the Connecticut River. I bid farewell to the lovely state of Vermont and hello to the state of New Hampshire. I’m a little bit worried about my hike on New Hampshire, I have very high expectations. I shouldn’t have any expectations but all the stories I’ve heard have me dreaming of visiting the wild places in this state. I guess time will tell.

I don’t think it took me long to reach downtown Hanover, New Hampshire. A well to do tourist town with fancy restaurants and expensive hotels. I asked a nice smelling gentleman in clean clothes where the post office was.

Instead of using my GPS I had to use the old school method of navigation, ask a local. It worked. He also told me the time. I was about 10 minutes early for my rendezvous with Earlybird.

While waiting I chatted with a couple of passing hikers including Bog Angel and Hot Mess. They recognised me through social media and we chatted for a while. They are hiking southbound and also considering hiking the Triple Crown and Cycle Touring to Argentina. How cool is that, I’m not the only crazy person with extraordinary dreams.

Earlybird showed up with my phone but couldn’t stay as work commitments were calling her name. My new phone. I’ll try not to drown this one. Great to see Earlybird again. Thank you.

I settled on a comfy chair at Starbucks to consume a Latte while trying to figure out how to transfer the data from my old phone to the new one. At this point can I pass on a little bit of advice. Back up your phone regularly. I lost a lot of data due to my own ignorance but learned a lesson and after several hours I managed to get my new phone up and running with all the apps working. Though I forgot to update the apps to the current versions. Whoops.

It was mid afternoon when I left the wifi of Starbucks and went to the grocery store to resupply. I enjoyed my short little stint with no technology so I decided to buy about 5-6 days worth of food and see how far that could take me. I already knew I had many options to get off trail to resupply but I didn’t want to get off trail. I want to be hiking and living on the trail.

Loaded with a very heavy pack I set off into the unknown of New Hampshire. I have high expectations, let’s see if this place is as amazing as I’ve been told.