Town of Bethel

Decided to impulsively have a Zero (as in zero KMs travelled, there is also Nero which is when you cover some but almost no distance). At the recommendation of my host, I learned of the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum. It has a huge collection to rocks and history of mining in Maine, and also rocks from the Moon and Mars. You could call it Maine's main rock museum, a little Maine joke there.

First I went for a walk around town, they have a nice playground and walkway. A lot of joggers out and about. I browsed to local dollar store and bought some ramen noodles and oatmeal, also noted there is apparently demand for coffee that tastes like Snickers. The colourful building is the local theatre.

Proceeded to the rock museum. Incredible. Surprising for such a small town. Spent a long time inside browsing the displays, then was able to touch both a piece of the Moon and a piece of Mars (one finger touching). Then, surprisingly, I was allowed to hold both a piece of the Moon and Mars. Apparently this is the only place in the world the general public can do this. I hadn't planned on any of this, I'd only learned this place existed a few hours before. Quite amazing.

It was trippy holding Mars. I kept thinking of the improbable chain of events that needed to happen to allow for this. First a meteorite needs to smack Mars with enough force and at the right angle to cause a piece of it to fly right out into space, which is incredible in itself. Then that piece of rocks drifts through empty space for who knows how long. Then it has to have right direction and velocity to enter Earth's atmosphere, and at the correct angle to not be completely burned up. The rock needs to be found (this one was observed falling out of the sky). And then testing needs to be done on it, and somehow those tests will reveal it is from Mars. It seems so statistically unlikely but here it is. It kind of blows my mind.

Also today I ate the bread, cheese and salami I bought yesterday instead of eating out. Not on quite the same level as the Mars rocks but I thought I'd mention it.

Tomorrow I hit the trail again. I've organised a pickup with some other people from Bethel. Shuttle driver is named Rodney, very highly spoken of in the hiking app.

Start: Bethel
Finish: Bethel
KMs: 0Read more