Barbarossa was staying at the hostel and had done the 21 miles the day before. He suggested either a full zero before doing the 21 miles or doing a super short day and then a long day. Wildcat Mountain has a gondola that operated through the summer. We could climb Wildcat and take the gondola down and the next day do the rest of the hike from the gondola to Gorham. The downside to this? It breaks down into a 3 mile day and then an 18 mile day. Not exactly an even split. But what the heck. We were tired. We decided to do 3 miles.
In the morning, we joined the others staying at the hostel for a delicious breakfast- quiche, muffins, and hash browns. I actually could not finish the breakfast! Talk about tailoring the meal to hikers. Plus, it was nice to eat at a big table with a bunch of other people like civilized human beings.
Then we got on the gondola and rode down. It took a while to get a ride back to town from Wildcat, but we eventually got a ride from a local couple who were entertaining some out of town guests. Their guests had just learned about the concept of thru-hiking and were excited at the prospect of meeting 2 real live thru-hikers. We spent the ride to town fielding questions and trying to prove that we weren't certifiably insane for doing it! They ended up dropping us off at Subway, always good for lunch with their $5 foot long subs. We had huge lunches at Subway and caught the hostel shuttle as it was returning from a resupply run.
And then...an afternoon off! We napped, journaled, read. We cleaned our gear and organized our resupply from yesterday. Then we ordered dinner from a local restaurant that delivered and watched a movie. Got to bed early, as we had an early day tomorrow to bang out 18 miles!