Doing the trench foot boogie in leopard with a cougar

After passing the halfway point many of us hikers have shifted our thinking to a countdown of miles left. A bitter-sweet countdown, as on one hand I'd love to be back home with my lovely lady, and on the other, I'm loving this hiker trash day-to-day lifestyle. Currently I only have 668.2 miles left and am estimating that I'll be done in early September. After already walking 1521 miles, 668 seems like a small number but it's extremely important for my mental attitude and ego to not slip. For North Bounders when you hit New Hampshire the saying goes, "You've done 80% of the trail and only 20% of the effort." New Hampshire and Maine being the last two states hold some of the hardest climbs and volatile weather. So as I'm sure you've seen, I am tending to some trench foot and taking a couple days off to let them heal for the last stretch of epic mountains.

Sadly because of my trench-foot I had to say goodbye to a couple of really cool fellas I'd been hiking with for the last week or two. Probably the longest time I'd hike with the same people since the beginning of this trek. One of my fondest memories with them was when a trail angel invited us to her home.

The three of us were in Kent, CT getting a short resupply of groceries and decided to get some food at a local pizza pub. We were the only three at the bar when a local woman came in and sat near us. She knew the bartender and we all started to shoot the shit about Kent and the trail. Eventually it came out that in the past she had taken hikers to her home to feed them and let them clean up and do laundry. Obviously, the moment she mentioned this all three of our ears perked up and we chatted with her more, in hopes of an invite. She then paid for our food if in turn we bought her a drink. So we finished our food and had a couple of shots. Then it finally happened, she asked "Are you guys going back out on the trail, or coming back to my place to get fed and cleaned up?" Of course we weren't about to turn down such a wonderful invite. So we went to the liquor store where she bought us beer and bourbon and then let me drive her new Range Rover back to her house.

Now from the sound of it, you might think this woman was a cougar on the hunt for young fit hikers. But she in fact was just an extremely hospitable person with a hint of cougar, as she was a recent divorcee turned lesbian with five kids. The strangest part of the evening was the only option for clothing to put on while we were doing laundry was her teenage daughters dresses. Now I won't lie, with our slender tone hiker legs, we looked pretty damn good. The rest of the evening was filled with beer, blabbing and bad music. Now I'm guessing it was the alcohol, but I openly considered wearing the dress for the duration of the trip. Plenty of guys wear kilts on the trail and some of the ladies wear dresses, so why couldn't I. But in the morning I opted out of wearing the leopard print hiker dress and her girlfriend took us back to town and bought us breakfast.

During breakfast the three of us couldn't stop laughing at what had just happened and how wonderfully weird it was. The night we wore leopard with a cougar.