Thursday, August 2, 2018

Road Trip Anybody, The Long Trail

Believe it or not you will soon be up to date.
There is more to the story,
   With a few day hikes under the belt the next stage of the plan is to purchase the equipment needed for such a hike. Road Trip! As a group we decided that and REI would be the best option to purchase the main bits of kit that would be the foundation of the hike. We met in Portland Maine for the night before traveling to Boston to shop at the REI outdoor store. The store front didn’t look like much and to be honest I was a little disappointed until we looked inside that is . Once we made our way inside I was pleasantly surprise! Lots of gear and lots of friendly knowledgeable staff to answer our every question , and we had questions. They did have answers to all our questions this made the stop at REI totally worth the trip. As the staff was helping us decide on the gear, they started to talk about the statistics and equipment information such as about temperature/down filled/waterproofing/ sizes /colors/ male/ female ect. , they were RPMing Tom to death. By the way RPMing means revolutions per minute. At one point he grabbed a mattress and a sleeping bag and crawled inside covered his head until Pauline had all the answers required to make an informative decision. As we left our wallets were a little lighter. One of the most stressful parts of this trip happened to Anita and I as we were paying for the equipment that we wanted. The credit card she was using didn’t work, I then tried mine and it didn’t work, debit cards were tried and didn’t work. This caused a major issue as this happened to us while visiting Pittsburgh and our credit cards were locked. To say Anita was pissed was an understatement. I really couldn’t put it into words, what I will say is her face was red and I didn’t want to be the scotia bank representative on the other end of thee phone when she got a hold of them. In the end it was found that it was the REI system that caused the issue and the credit cards were not locked equipment was paid for …likely a 40 minute wait caused by this.
   Can anyone say “BEER TIME” after that it was required. The staff was very helpful through this whole process. Back to the hotel to do a full gear inspection , happy with our purchases we celebrated with , yes you guessed it a few beer. Hmm starting to see a theme here. We didn’t hike while in Boston but we did tour the downtown water front visited a few pubs . We did cover some ground though and the uneven cobble stones were like hiking in the woods.
   The one place that stands out is the pub that Pauline picked out. The name was Bitsey Early , it was located on a side street a few blocks away from the city center. This was a place where the local would gather. We could tell it was classy joint as we crossed the brick threshold of the entrance ,they had a wine list! , it was written on a pizza box that was nailed to the wall. It said Wine list in black marker and below that it said RED and WHITE. That was the list. This as it turned out would not be the last time that we would enter a pub or restaurant that would leave an impression on us during this escapade. The washrooms were cleaned, it was just a shame that it had been a few years ago. Oh well it seems that these are the things that create memories. I signed the bathroom wall before leaving I think I was suppose to. This Hike on the long trail is going to create memories and the visit to this pub is a puzzle piece in the complete picture. Without this memory the picture would not be complete. In Toms words, “ If we don’t do the trip we are going to have one hell of a yard sale!”

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