Monday Morning Mock Draft: Boots (Literally) On The Ground Edition

Greetings fellow denizens of the internet.  I am writing this from the glorious metropolis that is Millinocket, ME.  I’m sure it was something before the timber companies all bailed out, but now it’s just a place to stay at a relatively cheap hotel before, and after, climbing Mt. Katahdin, Maine’s highest peak and an absolute bitch of a climb.

Katahdin is 5,269′ in height, which doesn’t sound like much, but it rises out of a pretty flat plain so of those 5,269′ you are going to go up, and unfortunately down, most of them.  My son, who thinks Katahdin is the greatest mountain ever…

(he may not be wrong)

has climbed it 6 times.  I have now climbed it twice.  The first time I was 17.  I am no longer 17.

Millinocket is 6+ hours from my house, so it’s a commitment to get up here and climb.  I set out yesterday at about 1:00 pm, aiming for my 7:30 check-in.

Here I am gassing up a 2010 Subaru Outback that has 246,000+ miles on it.  Will it make it to Maine and back?  As I write this I’m only halfway to yes, but it’s been a great car and last week I had them check all the belts, hoses, and fluids, then paid for a new serpentine belt, so it damn well better.

When I left the house to get gas the ETA per my GPS was 7:48.  When I finished getting gas, going to the bank, then dropping the week’s bills at the post office I checked again.

8:18.

Uh-oh.  Somewhere in the intervening 389 miles someone done fucked up.  Nothing to be done, I must away, and away I go.

Relatively smooth sailing until I get to the changeover from I-290 to I-495.  Fun fact that my kid didn’t tell me until later, this is apparently one of the biggest weekends for people to vacation in Maine!  July 4th?  Nope.  Labor Day?  Nope.  The Friday I just wanted to get to Millinocket to hike with my oldest?

This is what the lane for 495 looked like on arrival.

Traffic stayed like this, or worse, well into Maine.  At one point I checked my mileage and determined I had traveled 115 miles in 3 hours.  You can go ahead and do the calculations yourself, but that is neither highway speed nor likely to get you to Millinocket by 8:18.

Indeed, the very friendly voice on my phone, when not telling me about cars broken down on the side of the road or, (not that it mattered in these conditions), about speed traps up ahead, was telling me that traffic was getting worse, and that my arrival time was 8:20; 8:32, 8:48, and finally 9:01.  I may have used a few bad words during this time.

Finally, I got through this traffic and into whatever-we’re-calling-Maine-above-Augusta.  Traffic thinned considerably.

Until yesterday I had never seen Speed Limit 75 signs, but I have now.  Seriously, it’s the Autobahn up there.  Not a cop in sight and what are they going to do anyway when the speed limit’s 75?  There are, however, a significant number of signs warning people about moose, and their inclination to wander across highways without so much as a ‘by your leave’ and people you do not want to hit a moose at 25, let along 75.  Not good for the moose, not good for your car, and probably not good for you either.  I made up some time in this area, but not too much, (again, older high-mileage cars and 110 mph do not mix) (I may have caught myself doing 90 at one point, but in my defense it’s like driving in a trance up here), and now my arrival was 8:54.

My son has been advised of my situation which he a) laughed at, and b) went ahead and ordered pizza and beer, after scouting out the Millinocket downtown and being a) offered a toke off a stranger’s joint then) being told everything closes at 9.  He has the pizza ready when I arrive.

I will not tell you the name of the pizza place, nor did I take any pictures of it.  You’re welcome.  it was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the worst pizza either of us has ever had.  Needing to carbo load before the hike we each managed three pieces; the rest was donated to the trash.

Now, fun fact about Baxter State Park, unless you’re camping in the park you need to have a reservation to get in, you need to make that reservation months in advance, and you need to be at the parking lot when they open at 7:00, because at 7:05 they start giving spots away to people who show up the day of hoping to get lucky.

We pull into line at 7:01.  We get to jump one line, because we have a reservation.  As we pull up the rangers are closing the Roaring Brook lot, as it is full.  “Where you going?” asks our ranger.  My kid, because he’s my kid, says “Roaring Brook!” as cheerfully as you could possibly imagine.  The ranger pauses, not sure whether to subtly wave us through, or tell us tough shit.  “Nah, just kidding, we’re going to Abol.”  The ranger, who clearly isn’t paid enough for this nonsense, asks us if we have any pets, firewoods, or drones with us.  “No” we say, although my son does indeed have a drone with him.  We did not use it, however.  Hard not to have that noticed, and neither of us feels like getting arrested.

Oddly, no questions about guns.

Finally, it’s go time!

What a cute little sign, right?  Nothing to worry about here!  Just a quick hike of less than 8 miles and then we’re back, drinking beer and eating burgers!

Oh.  Oh that’s a bit different, inn’t?

Not to be deterred by such signs, or common sense, or age, up we go.

The first section is easy.  Nice steady uphill over smooth ground.  Nothing to this.  Then there’s a section of very rocky trail, steep enough to require steps made out of rocks as well as switchbacks.  I did get a good photo of us in this section looking up at where we need to end up, but there’s another hiker in it and I don’t know how to scribble his face out.  C’est l’vie.  Suffice it to say, steep, but nothing too bad.

Then we hit a mile of boulder scrambling.  This sort of gives you an idea of what we’re dealing with here, although I took it on the way down rather than on the way up.

That gives you a good idea of the steepness, although not a great idea of what it was like scrambling up and down boulders.  Mostly because I am not taking pictures while trying not to fall off boulders and rolling down that hill.

Here is a shot I took looking up at where we needed to go.

Mind you, that’s not the top of the mountain, that’s just the end of the boulder scramble.  Not a real confidence builder looking up at that and thinking that, no matter how long you think that distance is, or how much time it’s going to take to cover, or how much it’s going to hurt, you’re underestimating all of it.

Nevertheless, we persisted, eventually coming out of the boulder scramble and reach the plateau that leads to the summit.  This involves a long dull slog over broken ground, with the wind whipping at you while you try not to turn an ankle because you got excited that finally there was some flat ground and you don’t need to use your hands and then you didn’t see that small rock right in front of you.  Also the view doesn’t really change from what you see here, at least not until you get up on the ridge.

I may be related to the individual shown here.

The summit, Baxter Peak, is actually just off to the right of my son’s shoulder, sort of in the middle of the horizon, or pretty much on the left of the actual top ridge line.  What looks like the summit, off to the right, is actually the incredibly originally named South Peak, which in reality is a few feet shorter than Baxter Peak.

It’s an illusion!

Here’s a view of the way over to South Peak.  If you keep going you’ll be on what’s called The Knife Edge, which will take you over a peak called Pamola and, eventually, down into the Chimney Pond campground.

Here’s a picture of The Knife Edge trail, from the part where it gets its name.

See that blue blaze at the bottom center?  That’s the trail.  This is pretty much the exact spot I tried to climb down to, from that pile of rocks to the left, because I had missed the blazes, (coming from the other way), and nearly gave my father a heart attack.

In my defense, who the fuck puts a trail there?

That’s Chimney Pond.  The cliff to the right is the one you’ll be bouncing off of, (we estimated 800′ to the first bounce, back when I was scaring my father), if you fuck up on The Knife Edge.  My son and I have both hiked it, but didn’t repeat it today, as it would have taken us way out of our way back to the car.

We did get to the summit.

There’s a sign and everything.  We do have shots of both of us by the sign, but pretty sure my son would like to avoid having his face here, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Anyway, long story longer we then had to turn around and do the same thing in reverse.

These are the crowds coming up out of Abol towards us as we came down off the peak.  Looks like Everest on a sort of slow day.

The trip down sucked.  I’m too old to hammer my knees, (and I even wore braces), on rocks while dropping 3300′ of elevation over 3.8 miles.  Pretty sure my days of hiking trails like this are in my past, so I’m glad the potentially last one was with my son, and also glad that I was able to pass my love of hiking and climbing on to him.  Hope he gets his knees from someone else.

To the victors go the spoils.

The rest of you are…well, not on the clock, but go ahead and talk amongst yourselves.

*Author’s note:  My awesome old car got me safely back.  Some traffic, but nothing like what I had to deal with on the way up.  It was pretty awesome being able to set the cruise control at 74, in a 75 mph zone, and just go for the first 140 miles.

Not a lot going on in north-central Maine at 8:00 am on a Sunday.  I did see two ravens while going back to the place that served me the lobster roll up there, (I’ll give them a plug:  Golden Road Crossing), on the theory that they might make a halfway decent breakfast as well.

Two words:  Breakfast Stromboli.

My life has been changed forever.  That’s not theirs.  Theirs was better, but I ate it too fast to get a picture.

This is the traffic jam I saw on the other side of the highway as I neared the end of my journey, (having stopped off for BBQ), and I am eternally grateful that didn’t happen Friday, because I don’t think I would have made Maine.  It extended for miles.  Still trying to find out what happened, but it’s the kind of jam you see when they park two fire trucks across all three lanes of traffic so they can land a helicopter-ambulance.  Drive safe out there, people.

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Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

SORORITY SIS: [is nodding off]

FRAT BRO: Oh, don’t fall asleep on that couch. That’s what JD calls his ‘loveseat’.

SORORITY SIS: Ew! Thanks for the warning, I wouldn’t want that creep touching me at 3 a.m.

FRAT BRO: Oh, he wouldn’t touch you. He’d just yell at you to make like a tree and leave.

SonOfSpam

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scotchnaut

Frenchie-on-Frenchie violence at the women’s saber competition. Tage Thompson noticeably absent.

Downfield Matriculator

#1 The Olympics are great;
#2 The Olympic broadcasts are and always have been shit;
#3 The people running the IOC are corrupt shit purveyors and far worse than shit.

But I’m gonna talk about category #4

#4 The advertisers trying to sell us shit during the Olympics.

Category 4 exists based on the fact of #1, but contributes mightily to #2 and (along with host cities/nations taking on colossal unpayable debts and making bribe payments), keeps #3 immortal and evergreen. But all that is business as usual.

What I fucking need to rant about now is how the ceaseless Olympic advertising bludgeons you into submission, unless and until, for just a moment you stop and think about them, as I unfortunately did with that Google Gemini ad where the AI is gonna write a letter for a little girl to her track star hero. WTF? I see from the internet I am not alone in thinking it might actually be a crime against humanity to suggest that Google’s bastard child of Siri and ChatGPT should excuse a kid from learning to write, learning to express the appreciation of others and basing her heartfelt admiration on words mined from the ceaseless flow of garbage that the models slurp into their algorithms and dump on all of us – as their shit.

If that Dad were real, he should be sentenced to read only AI produced advertising copy for as long as it takes for his daughter to graduate college and become a writer. If that never happens, then the eternity of the punishment fits the fucking crime. The dipshits at Algorithms-B-Us down in Mountain View not far from me really need to find some human connection somewhere.

Sorry for the essay, but JFC, can we just go back to Home Depot makings ads about the jobs the give the Olympians because we as a country will not fund any of them like those dirty socialists in other places?

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Yeah, that AI shit bugged me too.

ArmedandHammered

There is no need for you to have an original thought, you just need to consume our content.

Gumbygirl

Earthquake!

Gumbygirl

4.7 near Barstow. Shook my house pretty good, my cat is scared shitless.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Poor kitty!

We felt it here too.

ballsofsteelandfury

I didn’t feel shit

Downfield Matriculator

-Deanna Favre, morning after date night

ArmedandHammered

Brett Farve the only Fraternity Bro who did not have to roofie women for them to forget an evening with him.

SonOfSpam

-German guy leaving a one-star review of the Berlin Brothel

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

How can a women be named “Mollie O’Callaghan” and not swim for Ireland?

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Oh look! Another thriller about an assassin who tries to hang it up and ends up being hunted by her own colleagues! How refreshing and original!

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blaxabbath

Go with what* works.

*Anything. Anything works.

SonOfSpam

The show title is also interesting and provocative. The same people would come up with “Love Day” or “Poochie”

Game Time Decision

Let’s do RED, but younger and female
-NBC exec’s, mailing it in

Downfield Matriculator

Maybe in this one, she could partner up with a ex-con now back on the streets who gets his old gang togther to commit one last hugely bankable sure thing crime in order to retire . . . but then they rade bodies like Freaky Friday and hijinks ensue

/I am copywriting this idea immediately so don’t get any ideas, evil media companies
// I will happily license the idea in return for some college tuition funds for the kids
/// And you know this would be a better movie that Deadpool mouthing off to Wolverine and you dipshits greenlighted that

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

It gets even worse – it’s actually John Woo remaking one of his own films.

ArmedandHammered

Fuck – he gamble all his money away?

Unsurprised

This immediately made me think of The Sweet East. BTW, it’s a good movie. Simon Rex kills it, just like he did in Baker’s other movies.

This also reminds me that I went back home after more than a decade last year, and maybe I should share as a sign of good faith after 3 years away. But I took the tram up the mountain at night, which I hadn’t done since the 90s, and it was really neat. Grade A tourist attraction. Sadly, the restaurant/bar at the top already closed, so I didn’t get to get sauced at 13,000 feet AGL.

BugEyedBoo

I didn’t know why they didn’t take my advice and shoot the other person in the hand. “Oops, my bad, kind of got away from me there for a minute.”

SonOfSpam

But could you do it rhythmically?

SonOfSpam

Fun true story. Wandering around UC Irvine campus just before start of freshman year, getting classes and ID pic, whatever. Guy walks up with a clipboard and says “Hey you have thee right build, wanna be on freshman crew?” (I was tall and thin) I said why not and signed up. First practice was the next Monday at 6 AM at Newport Bay location. Alarm goes off at 5, and I think, ok I can make it today, but am I gonna make it like EVERY day? Nah. So I went back to sleep, didn’t really think about it again.

At the end of the term, my report card showed “Pass” for NCAA Freshman Crew. So technically, I have the requisite experience to comment on your post. Yes, it’s difficult.

Unsurprised

Like how Shane Gillis is a decorated war veteran and D-1 athlete for having spent like a week at West Point.

SonOfSpam

Kinda, except I don’t wanna beat the shit out of me. Most days.

BugEyedBoo

Tried to talk my daughter into taking up crew in high school, figuring it would look good on her transcript. That looked too much like work to her, so she took a pass.

Unsurprised

It’s an easy scholarship for women in college, too. At least as long as Title IX exists.

SonOfSpam

It’s their seoul defense

Gumbygirl

Spam, Spam, Spamalamadingdong! Silliness like this is why you are my favorite. Don’t tell the others

BugEyedBoo

South Korean ladies were 1-2 in 10m Air Pistol. Literally shoot your eye out!

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

All jokes aside, is there a country in the world that’s more technologically advanced than South Korea?

SonOfSpam

I mean, Japan has Godzilla.

SonOfSpam

I spent a day rock climbing in Joshua Tree when I was about 19 and in great shape. It was still terrible and I never need to do that again.

Hiking is fine, I guess. Would like to do the Mont Blanc trail someday. Or maybe just drink beer and eat cheese in the Alps.

LemonJello

Hello.

Am I interrupting you? I am? Too fucking bad.

Look, why haven’t you joined our tWBS Memorial Lowratio League? You think you’re too good for us or something?

There’s one spot left. It could be yours if you’d just get off your high horse and sign up.

Here’s the link: https://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/209105/invitation?key=3a07144c86507a29&soc_trk=lnk&ikey=79d23a09c66a6ad9

C’mon, you know you want to join.

Unsurprised

That’s an insult to Vova.

He’s Peter Thiel’s personal Senator. There is a rich vein of material there to be mined.

BrettFavresColonoscopy

I’m sleepy and reject this concept of “working on a Monday”

BrettFavresColonoscopy

To be clear, I’m working, but I’m in a four hour meeting that I’m giving approximately 15% of my attention.

blaxabbath

I’m at work but I forgot my backpack at home. So no glasses and no calendar.

I have a meeting at 1p but otherwise am “setting up my week”.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Have you got something against the Olympics? They’re way better live.

LemonJello

Lichtenstein knows what they did and until they make amends there will be no live Olympics in House Cornblower.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

You mean the WCS succession struggle?

Unsurprised

Same. I already burn through my lunch break napping.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

My summer camp girlfriend lived in the Katahdin cabin! Didn’t have as much luck as Horatio did in the mounting department, however.

Speaking of mounting, I’m watching equestrian on the Gold Zone channel that NBC has got. And now they have switched to skateboarding.

blaxabbath

I don’t mean to bring JD Vance to a touch-free crescendo here but that landscape looks like the curve of a dirty old couch cushion under 80x magnification.

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blaxabbath

I don’t know Maine. Besides a cursory stop in Bangor, I never been there. Sure makes sense it’d be a safe place to live and “get away”. But, as is shown here, overpopulation/low-fuel costs make any accessible locale attainable to Carnival Cruiseline Groupon American Public.

Got to get a physical barrier (BUILD THAT MOAT!) between the population and yourself. I feel like one of those islands in the north is always a good approach. Or even around a good bend in a canyon. Glass Hotel had a plane or boat or something, right?

People in LA man — don’t be within a battery charge of ’em when thongs get ugly.

LemonJello

when thongs get ugly

Also known as “that time dysentery struck the Playboy Mansion grotto.”

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

“Bangor? Eh…let me see if there’s any Cialis left in the cabinet.” – Tipper

ballsofsteelandfury

Very glad you are still alive!

Yeah, my hiking/climbing days are over. Fuck that.

blaxabbath

Go hike.

BrettFavresColonoscopy

The best thing about hiking is that the term applies to both a 25 minute walk around a small lake and a three day death march over/through a mountain.

Gumbygirl

I do the grueling trek between my couch and the refrigerator several times a day!

ArmedandHammered

Don’t forget the weed store!

Gumbygirl

I NEVER forget the weed store!