Tuesday May 18, 2010

Camp 17: Nita's Toaster House

We are in Pie Town, New Mexico at Nita's Toaster House.  A quaint little hiker haven that gets its name from the abundance of toasters hanging on the picket fence.  It has a porch with old car seats and benches, a fridge full of sodas, beer and pizza and the house is open to hikers to take showers, do laundry and sleep.  We are loving the unexpected New Mexico trail magic!  We've been sitting here talking to Handlebar, a 65 year old man from Ohio, going for his Triple Crown.  He just split his finger open chopping kindling and is in need of real stitches but refuses.  Instead, we got out the first aid kit and did the best doctoring we could with what little we had.  Nita just stopped by to say hello.  She no longer lives in the house but is happy to leave it open to hikers.  Her daughter is a firefighter in Yosemite...I love small world stories!  We went to the tiny hole in the wall post office to pick up our resupply box as there is no grocery store in town.  Actually, there's not much of anything in town!  When we first walked in we didn't see a soul, it felt like an eerie old ghost town.  The streets were quiet, the houses run-down, trash would blow across the road and an extremely obese dog that could barely bark growled at us from behind a fence.  Too much pie, I'm assuming.  I half expected to see freaky little girls in dresses singing songs like you might see in a horror film.  Anyways, turns out the town is nothing like what it seemed at first, thankfully!  We received several letters and boxes from friends and family so we took our goodies to the Daily Pie Cafe for some lunch followed by pie and coffee.  We were greeted again, by some of the nicest people in the world!  The cook, and owner I believe, was a friendly man out to help in any way possible.  He let us use the phone to call home as there were no pay phones in town either.  After a long discussion and no luck finding a home for Wolfie, I had to call the animal rescue shelter that I despised, to come and pick him up.  I was assured by the locals that it really was a decent place where many people volunteered and the animals were fed and taken care of.  I glanced out the window watching Wolfie sniff around houses and cars as I made the call.  He was partially covered in green cow manure as he had taken the liberty of herding some cattle on the way into town and rolled in a fresh cow pattie before we could stop him.  It broke my heart to say goodbye.  I walked outside and whistled, he immediately ran to me and the lady from the shelter leashed him and took him away.  I walked back inside going straight to the bathroom to wipe my eyes, knowing it was the right thing to do as we simply couldn't support a hiker dog.  He had only been with us for a few days, but mind you, a few days on the trail seems like a lifetime.