Attn: several photos included in post
Yup. Seema and Brian surprised us with a Friday finish. Since my last communication with Seema pointed very strongly to a Saturday finish, Spongebob and I took advantage of the nice weather to hike up OJI. Saw no one. Lingered on the top and other look out points for a very long time. Took short mountain naps and enjoyed the views. We knew we'd be in for a long, wet, possibly viewless slog on Saturday. I felt pretty bummed for Seema and Brian that they'd missed out on finishing during the stretch of beautiful weather.
We got back to our lean-to around 3pm. I noticed right away that the large bottle of wine had been moved. "Hey!!! Who's touching my stuff?" Seema had left a long note under the wine bottle explaining the epic hiking push they made to finish on a good weather day! Sad to miss out on hiking up there with them, super happy that they were headed up in good weather. They arrived back to the camp ground in true Seema style: in the rain at 1 am! Hugs were given out sleepily (and a little stinkily too, as you can imagine) I directed them to the plate of brownies waiting for them on the seat of my car.
In the morning Spongebob and I re-packed all our car camping stuff (i.e. too much of everything) as tightly as possible so that we could fit the stinky packs in the trunk and three thru-hikers in the back (Seema and Brian were hiking with a woman named Bound and she needed a ride out of the park). They held our clean packs on their laps. Lots of chatter about the gorgeous leaves on the way out, a stop at the AT cafe and then a long, sleepy drive to Portland where I unloaded everyone, including Spongebob. Then a long sleepy drive back to VT in the pouring rain.
It was pretty darn cool to share small pieces of Seema and Brian's trail adventure: when they came through VT, when I saw them at hikethe115's in North Conway, and meeting up with them in Baxter. I doubt I will ever thru-hike the AT myself, but it sure was fun to live vicariously through these two.
Congratulations! Here's to a healthy post AT recovery.