Since you been gone

Hi '10s, and others who may be reading this!

I'm not going to lie, everyone's adventures in Alask-arado-fornia sound pretty exciting and like lots of fun. (Lily, if you trap a pika and smuggle it back east for me I will drive Teo down to NY to see you!) But don't worry, I'm here holding down the fort in Hanover. Some updates from the Soph's summer: the entire food court building is closed, disaster! The front door is plastered with about eight signs, the biggest of which says "WHERE WILL I EAT?" with some informative suggestions. The college has negotiated free passes to Storr's pond for all students, but has also completely banned swimming at the Ledyard docks. S&S installed some pretty heavy duty "danger no swimming" signs that are sunk solidly in cement. The signs have transmogrified to read "danger, rhiNOs swimming." The college has yet to formulate an appropriate response plan to prevent needless deaths of innocent students at the hands of the Northern River Rhino.

Right after graduation Ben and I spent a couple days in Laconia and took in the sights and sounds of Bike Week at Weirs Beach. Then we took off for the Canadian border and then chubbered our way down 50 miles of the Long Trail. It was hot and quite muggy and buggy, but I hadn't been on a real backpacking trip in a long time and after TITS, finals, and senior week some nice long days of exercise were long overdue. The crown peak of that section is Jay, and we hit it right around sunset as the last gondola full of sightseers was heading back down. To see a longer account of the trip, please refer to our new blog, famousinternetlongtrailhikers.com.

The day after we got back I started work on Titcomb cabin. We first had to get rid of all the debris from the old cabin, so we spent several days digging holes and then filling them with bricks and broken concrete. We've also finished peeling all the logs out at the O-Farm, placed 8 cardboard tubes in the ground to fill with cement for the cabin's supports, and canoed 3,360 pounds of concrete (this is exact) out to Gilman Island. We should get our official building permits tomorrow, and then the fun really begins: we get to float the logs downstream to the island and start building! If you're interested in seeing some photos and following the cabin as it progresses, you can actually read more about it here.

My plans for the 4th of July weekend include a pre-festivities Whiskey War Canoe expedition on Saturday, a day climbing at Cannon, and then a night at the Lodj where an enthusiastic alum has created a life-size vinyl banner of the old Tip Top house to be put on the summit.

Headed off to see Toy Story 3, finally, can't wait to hear more from everyone!



Kate