Date: 2004-07-07
From: Fort Montgomery, NY

To: Graymoor Friary
Miles today: 6.3

Picked up my mail and a large brewed (not instant!) coffee this morning after sleeping in. Decided to give the Trailside Exhibit a miss, despite the statue of Walt Whitman and the lowest point on the A.T. that this 0.1-mile exhibit features. (Officially, since it was closed last night, the A.T. followed the road I ended up walking, so I can't be considered a blue-blazer -- or worse, a yellow-blazer).A short hiking day through gently rolling terrain. Predicted thundershowers have not yet materialized, but just in case, I've laid out my sleeping bag under the monastery's ballfield shelter. My Campmor headnet arrived in the post today, so I may put it to use at bedtime if the bugs are bad.Half hoped to see the Pokey posse here tonight, though I knew they'd never take a 3-mile day. Hard to say goodbye to such a likeable crew. Yesterday, when Trunks offered to take a note ahead to Pokey for me ("What -- no stamp? Okay, I'll take payment in granola bars.") to let them know I would be here tonight, I was as close to tears as I've been on the trail so far. Further back on the trail, Trunks had asked me, "So, are you okay with hiking alone now?" ALONE. It didn't matter that I had started alone and had foreseen my hike as one long solitary meditation, and had been delighted with that possibility. It didn't matter tha, instead, I had met and befriended one hiker or group of hikers after another and planned to continue this trend up to Katahdin and then back down to Virginia. The word "alone" hung in the air like a cloud of poison gas.Feeling slightly affronted by this question, I rationalized that, out here, we are all alone in that we have to be able to depend upon ourselves; the kindness of strangers is a bonus -- trail magic -- that is dangerous if it becomes an expectation. (Rael had made that clear early on.)I'm not alone, though! In fact, I've never really felt alone on the trail. Even when I'm hiking on my own during the day, I know which hikers are ahead of me, some behind, and can make a pretty good estimate of when I'll see each one next.I am on my own -- as in self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-contained. But not alone. Get it straight.Later: Brother Leo and his dog Buddy came down to the ballfield shelter at 4:30 in his pickup to get the numbers for dinner. For decades now, the Franciscan brethren here at Graymoor have offered shelter and dinner to thru-hikers. On hte wall in one of their buildings a quotation from Romans reads: "If you give, give generously." And they do! A chef from the Culinary Institute of America heads a staff including a number of men who are at the friary for rehab from alcohol or drug addictions. These latter served us and cleared the table.First we got egg drop soup, then we sat down to a table laden with pasta, cheese, bread, salad and tea -- and more of everything when we had gobbled it down. Then a bowl of rice and a bowl of Chinese chicken and vegetables appeared. And a platter of hoagies (or grinders as RI-ers call them).Fourteen of us here tonight: Walk Softly and his friend Arthur, Toe Break and his son Kevin (later dubbed "Hairless Bear"), Wacomico Walker and Mississippi Mule, the Roman Noodles, Dragon Slayer and Wicked Lobstah, Patrick the Sole Brother, K-2 and me. The tents are going up at the edges of the soccer pitch, but I'm under the shelter roof tonight.The cold shower was refreshing, and most of us have hung out laundry on the line.