Flip Flop Hikers: Sprout Day 154 (Sunday, August 28th, 2016)

We had a great day on the trail. We woke up at 4:15 and started getting ready for the day. The past couple days we have been filtering our water into the cook pan before bed so we don't have to do it in the morning. It's been helping us get ready a little quicker. Tumbleweed and Sunflower wanted us to wake them so they could get an early start. We woke them and all made coffee and ate breakfast together. When I got up the moon was still out and the sun just started to peek through as we were drinking coffee. It's a great feeling to be ready for the day and drinking coffee while watching the sunrise. What made it even better was a bald eagle flew right above us and sat in a tree looking at the water. It made a weird noise and flew off into the sunset. It was an epic morning.

We were on the trail at 5:45. Since we got an early start Bubbles and I decided to try the ten

by ten challenge. We did great and got 9.8 by 10:00 a.m. This day was our five month anniversary on the trail and we did 21.5 miles! Our first 20 mile day. We might be getting our trail legs!

There were a few different spots to get a good view of Katahdin. It looks huge and crazy but I'm so excited to hike up that mountain. We have worked so hard to get to where we are today and it feels amazing to be here. I'm glad my trip isn't ending. It will be ending my trek north but we still have 860 in the south! We're ready for the southern end. We thought we were getting trail magic today but it really ended up being a car dropping someone off on an old dirt forest road!

We passed a pond with a lot of boats tied up around the shore. It really made me want to fish there but we had to get moving and down the trail. It had to be a great spot to fish with all those boats. We came across the nicest spring on the AT. It's a ground spring that filters through a bunch of small rocks and sand and the water was ice cold and clear. Our book said it was the nicest spring on the AT and I can see why!

We're 30.1 miles from Katahdin. I remember laying at home with Bubbles looking at the map wondering what it would feel like when we made it to where we are right now. It's a surreal feeling. Katahdin looks huge and sounds tough but I know we can do this if we all work together. It's great the Three Amigos are going to summit Katahdin together!