August 6, 2019

At 4:30am, an alarm clock shouted at us in the dark hotel room. I could not fathom the day of driving we had ahead of us after what felt like far too little sleep. HQ went straight for the shower while Oakland and I were bleary eyed lumps for a few more minutes. After making a final sweep of the room, we piled into the car with our gear and the massive stockpile of snacks that HQ had packed for the journey.

The rising sun ushered us out of Millinocket, and, nearly 14 hours later, it broke through a patchwork of storm clouds to welcome us back to Haymarket, VA. In between those two points, we went through fog, rain storms, a rainbow, and hours of smooth sailing, all to the soundtrack of Alan Cumming’s memoir. It was a welcome break from the stress of Maine, but I felt like a cinder block after so much sitting, and every hour brought us closer to Oakland’s impending departure. 

I don’t have any other notes for this day, so here are the handful of road trip pictures I took. For a zero day, we sure did cover a lot of miles 🙂

Miles: 0 trail miles and about 775 road miles back to Haymarket, VA

Checklist total miles: 1060.7  

Oakland total miles: 583.3

Creature feature: just the metal beasts zooming by and perpetually hungry hikers in the car