three weeks down...

my, how time has flown by! :) 

i am currently in vermont and as i type this, i'm downing a pint of ben & jerry's phish food. vermont has been amazing thus far! y'all, i am super close to being a 2,000-miler, and i have STILL not had to hitchhike. i really had planned on hitchhiking this morning when i got to the road, but these vermont people are so nice, i swear i had not even set my pack down and had time enough to put my thumb out, and a car had pulled over and wanted to know if i needed a ride. so swayze and i hopped into her car, and she took us straight to mcdonald's. wanna know what my breakfast was? are you ready for this? i had a bacon, egg & cheese mcgriddle, a sausage biscuit, and a cinnamon melt that was washed down by two big glasses of sweet tea (thank GOD mcdonald's exist in the north)! 1,200+ calories of pure bliss. swayze had her fix, too: three sausage biscuits! 

mcdonald's was an amazing treat because yesterday, i ran out of food. up until vermont, you could "deli hop" on the AT, which basically means that you hit a town at least once a day that's close enough that you can go in for lunch, and not have to pack that food with you. when i resupplied the day before i hit vermont, i got the normal amount of food that i have been getting, but there aren't any delis mid-day here in this state. so i went through my food faster than i thought i would, and i was sufficiently starving by the time we got to town this morning. 

my pack is newly decorated! i ran into a few trail maintainers the other day, and they were painting blazes on the trees. i really wanted to paint a blaze, and i asked them if i could, but i don't think they took me seriously and they just laughed about it. but when i ran into their buddies a few miles north, i asked them if they would paint a blaze on my pack, and they let me do it myself! :) so now i have a white blaze on my backpack, and it's with bona fide AT paint! 

i have been meeting new, awesome people on a fairly regular basis. i haven't seen damselfly in almost a week. i feel really bad because there was a bee climbing up my shirt, and when i tried to climb behind my back, i took my pack off and dropped it to the ground, but when i bent down, the bee fell in my hair and got stuck, hahaha. then i semi-freaked out because i could hear this bee getting so pissed off going BUZZBUZZBUZZBUZZZBUZZZZZZZZ right next to my ear, and damselfly braved the bee and got it out with two sticks, but then it fell on her foot and stung her through her sock. and she's allergic to bees! =( so she took my bullet bee for me, and then had to go into town and medicate herself, and i have yet to see her since. she is okay now, and hopefully, she will catch up and i will see her soon. 

swayze's feet are holding up well. i bought some softpaws... they are nail caps that are meant to protect hardwood floors from dogs' feet. they're the last thing i could think of that might work for hiking. her front feet have had them on for almost 3 weeks now, and i just put her back toes on a few days ago. we'll see how this goes. i just ordered her a new coat tonight that should keep her nice and toasty for the white mountains here in a few weeks. i'm getting kind of nervous about how cold it will be when i get to them...

oh... i stayed at a hostel a few nights ago. i saw a picture of tim from 2011 where he'd stayed there. there is now a blank spot on that poster, and every time i open my guide book now, a handsome hiker man stares back at me. =D