Update:

Update:
I returned home from Gorham, NH on 10 July to complete my career retirement process, which became official at midnight ET on Saturday, 21 July 2018.

On 19 July, my colleagues gave me a wonderful sendoff lunch during which I volunteered a briefing about the hike (so far) and ran through some of my photos. I made a few edits to the briefing (and will continue to do so), but here is the link to the PDF (slides and notes) for anyone interested:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WHwpb4PLTniZWBBnpGozrcf3FZ0kkkDH

Feel free to drop me a comment or question.

I have my travel reservations to return to Gorham this week and continue my adventure in Maine. I'm a bit anxious, because I made a 15 mile mountain hike last Thursday (yay, retirement!) on a rocky trail that left the soles of my feet very sore though my muscles felt fine. I don't expect Maine to be any kinder to me, so I'm hoping to take a slow start.

I still need to catch up on my June-July posts, but I'll summarize that Penguin dropped off-trail at Crawford Notch, NH while I continued through the White Mountains, summiting Mount Washington at 7:30am on Independence Day in perfect weather. Penguin resumed hiking the AT from Georgia to Franklin, North Carolina, then jumped back north to hike New York to Vermont again. It is unlikely our paths will cross on our respective hikes, but we are texting each other.

Thanks for following!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WHwpb4PLTniZWBBnpGozrcf3FZ0kkkDH