Day 174

I don’t ever want to come to Andover again. What a dump. There’s nothing here. Only one single market to get any resupply (that’s expensive) and has a grill. The place is FULL of flies. You sit there at a table eating whatever you ordered and you’re constantly swatting at flies that are all over your table, landing on your arm and even under the table crawling on your legs. It’s pure torture! I’m sitting on a porch swing at the hostel and I’m swatting at flies that won’t stop landing on me here as well. I’d rather deal with the gnats on trail than the insane flies in this town! I’ve dealt with health inspectors. I worked in a nice bar & grill that luckily didn’t have a fly problem like this, but I know that a health inspector will shut you down for having flies. I’m kinda surprised they’re open to serve food at this market with the massive infestation of flies in the building but I guess when you’re the ONLY place in town, you can get away with it. Anyway, the only reason I’m here is because the next town I will get to is Stratton, Maine. That would have been 6 days. That’s too much food for me to carry. That’s why I stayed at this lovely place for two days. It allowed me to go back to East B Hill Road and hike 10.1 miles to South Arm Road and then come back. It was nice not having to carry a full food bag for a day. I left it at the hostel as I day hiked with a lighter pack. Now that I’m back, I can hike out tomorrow starting where I stopped at South Arm Road and only need to carry 5 days of food to get me to Stratton. I already have a reservation for a bunk at Maine Roadhouse there, which I keep hearing is one of the best hostels on trail and that it’s a 5-star hostel. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll be over 2,000 miles before I get there. That’s so exciting to think about.