This was a perfect “setup day” for tomorrow. Two thirds of the hike was mostly descending and included my first experience at an AMC hut, which was Lonesome Lake Hut. The kids that work there (called “croo”) were very friendly to me and Sparkle. I hear all kinds of horror stories about how they’re so mean to thru-hikers but I really think you get back the attitude you throw at them. We walked in smiling and saying hello and there really pleasant back. We paid $5 to get a plate and a fork and then we were able to scoop up any of the leftover food from breakfast that could fit on our plate and eat that. The chocolate chip pancakes were luke-warm but delicious and the rest like the eggs and oatmeal were just cold. I don’t care. It’s calories and I devoured my plate. The last third of our hike was all climbing but it gets most of the climb out of the way leaving us only .3 miles of climbing tomorrow to put us on Franconia Ridge. We got to camp early, before 2pm, and the caretaker wasn’t here yet. Since it was just starting to rain, we found a tent platform and set up. It’s a seriously tight squeeze but we made it work. They want two tents on a platform and we saw others setting up on the group platforms that’s meant for 6 or more people. We’ll let the caretaker deal with that. We did the polite thing. Luckily, me and Sparkle like each other because we’re definitely set up close! LOL! The good thing about it is that we’re blocking the rain from splashing into our tents. Tomorrow we’ll get up and hike Franconia Ridge. It’s one of the places I’ve been waiting to see since the beginning of this trip and I’m SO happy it worked out that the rain happened on our “setup day” and the weather is set to be sunny and clear for our ridge walk tomorrow. I’m going to rest and relax for the rest of the day and be fully rested to get up early tomorrow.