Firewardens Cabin shelter

Well I have had a bit of a morale low today, hiking 21 miles of rather boring terrain, really. Also there are a lot lot of negative Nancy northbounders around. They have perfected the art of complaining about things they are voluntarily doing. 
It is like a whole new trail, this flat stuff. Well it's not exactly flat of course but flatter and with fewer good above- treeline views. My knees are cool with this change but I miss the old trail. Ah, transitions. We definitely still have the mud and the bog bridges that remind me of a Nintendo game or a circus elephant. I have gotten really really good at slip recovery- that is, I can stay up even after losing my balance on a rock or a slippery log or root. Sometimes I bet it looks like a clown circus stunt, when I slip and dance around until stabilized again.
I should tell the story of Mt Washington. Flora, Brookie, and I all made it up safely to see the foggy views and eat pizza and ice cream and other things at the store at the top, and it began to storm while we were up there so we spent about four hours at the top inside wondering what to do. In that time we came across Cant Stop, Black Eagle, Chipmunk, and Crazy Talk, who had the same dilemma as us, which was that we really didn't want to hike in a thunderstorm on top of the highest mountain in the northeast. Well we couldn't stay at the visitors center. Brookie discussed the radar with a ranger and told us we had an hour window of lighter storminess in which we could book it down the mountain to the Lakes of the Clouds hut, so we all snapped into action, threw our cold rain gear on, and set out as a parade of seven. It was pretty fun I must say. We were getting pelted with rain and for the last ten or fifteen minutes it was really sketchy what with the lightning and all but we made it! All safe and sound, and the volunteer croo at the hut welcomed us with gusto and let us all do work for stay. We were well fed, I played some cribbage, and we slept on the dining room tables. Well I didn't sleep much because there were like fifty teenage girls there that went to the bathroom in giggly groups of five well into the night but anyway. 
In the morning we all did stuff like dishes and blanket folding and sweeping and we really took our time because we could see people outside struggling to walk through the wind and rain. We could hear their pack covers and rain pants flapping violently from inside, it was pretty ridiculous. We did eventually leave, parade style again, and those kinds of days are the ones you remember. The days when your pack straps whip you in the face, it is so windy. The days when you contemplate how bad the weather has to be before you toss your trekking poles aka lightning rods far away and crouch on your pack. 
That day Brookie was leading and I was second. He nimbly hopped over a giant deep puddle and looked back to see me completely perplexed because there was no way to go around or through and he picked up a rock and put it in the puddle so I and the rest of us shorties could make it. Do you see why I might miss Brookie? Not to mention he was always very generous with his peanut butter m&m and reeces pieces mixed bag. Want to make a friend on the trail? Offer someone some food.