We awoke to the sound gentle rain. After breakfast it increased to torrential and the tent seemed to be on an island surrounded by floods. We decided to wait for a drier moment to leave the campsite. Well it eased off and set off with a wet tent bundled up - at about 10.30pm. We went into Poland then down a backroad to rejoin
the route. Then down the SR 11 to Naples. Approaching Naples we saw our first transam cyclists - going eastwards so across the busy road - waves exchanged. An oldish man came out of the drugstore with his prescription and said Welcome to Naples, then said that America needed correction, rather fiercely. A lot of questions were left unsaid! Literature shopping a lady smoking nearby said that she hoped we weren't going west since big T storms were approaching. We admitted that we were headed to the west. I am writing this in a tent with a thunderstorm echoing around but it isn't a particularly bad one - no lightning so a modest one so far. Anyway we sped on to Bridgton and then Sweden (blink and you miss it). Then to Lowell then hauled up here at the Canal Bridge family campground., $43 dollars and pretty good. When I mentioned the transam bikers he said they were a seasonal feature and he had done the Appalachian Trail - which we will cross in a day or two. And I am reading, when not writing this diary, Bill Bryson's account of trying to walk that trail - A Walk in the Woods. I shan't spoil it for you by telling you if he makes it (2000 mile walk!). Transams are not the only challenge just here. Outside the tent there is a crowd of hungry mosquitoes and whenever we go out about 6 get in and we then play hunt the mosquito...
Tomorrow we climb, weather permitting, the Kancamagus Pass to just under 3000'. We need sun, today it rained on and off all day, drier as the day went on, so there is hope.