May 13-Day 17 / Pie Town 411

Zero day in Pie Town at the Toaster House! So while I'm laying around, praying my foot heals, how about a tour of Pie Town? The picture above is me at the gate of the Toaster House.

Pie Town is a small town of less than 50 people on US-60 with a windmill museum, three small cafes (one serves only pie), a post office, an RV park, and three churches: Mormon, 7th Day Adventist, and Baptist.

The town is famous with CDT hikers because of Nita's Toaster House-a free hiker hostel. Nita (pictured above) moved to Pie Town in the early 1980's and raised her family in the Toaster House. She quickly discovered her home was on the CDT and began inviting hikers to her home to shower, wash cloths and eat. When her kids were grown, she moved out of the Toaster House and it became a permanent hostel for hikers. No one lives there, but during the hiking season there can be 15-20 hikers staying there on any given night.

Pie Town is also home to one of these:

It is part of an array of 10 radio telescopes used for astronomical research. It's remotely controlled and we watched it turn during our brief visit. Beam me up Scotty! Below is a link with some more info for you space geeks: Very Long Baseline Array and a video I shot of the dish turning on it's rotating platform. It only weighs 240 tons!