Date: 2009-06-21
From: Mohican Outdoor Center

To: Unionville
Miles today: 40.0

And today the forcast calls for....more rain. No way?! Who would have guessed. I am getting sick of hiking in the rain even though I'm still having fun. I don't want to go home I just want a new adventure that doesn't involve getting wet and cold everyday or sweaty and smelly every other day. So today we took a road trip. After we packed our stuff in and checked out we decided to take the road and get a little ahead. Yea I know we really cheated. But we met some pretty cool people along the way. First two ladies picked us up, not even a mile away from the Center. They were leaving after a weekend of camping. They gave us a ride out to the main road as far as they could before they had to start heading south to go home. After that we walked for at least an hour, about 3 miles before anyone else would stop. Two other ladies just out bored and driving around gave us a ride about 11 miles up the road. They dropped us off at a gas station and we got some food. The guy working there told us it's illegal to hitch hike in new jersey. We thought he was kidding so we walked on and not 5 minutes later a cop pulls up. He needed ID but not mine, just Pogos. Pogo couldn't find his though, he rented a game at the Center and you have to give them your ID until you return the game and he never got the ID back. (They found it today though and are mailing it ahead.) So the cop took down his info then finally decided he needed to see mine too. He told us he could have written us up for hitch hiking but he didn't. So we walked back to the gas station to figure out what to do next. We asked some people getting gas but none of them were headed that way. So we decided to hike further up the road out of that cops area and along the way an older guy asked what we were doing. He told us to meet him at the supermarket and he would take us a couple miles up the road. He was really sweet and ended up taking us a lot farther than he intended to. It started sprinkling but luckily we were in a car not in the mountains. He dropped us off 7 miles from Unionville. So we started walking again trying to get a ride along the way. A huge white truck passed by and shot a lot of black smoke out of his exhaust as he did. It was so gross and rude. If you're not going to help someone you don't have to torment them either. Not too long after though a really nice Mazda stopped and we couldn't believe it. We thought he was just messing with us until he told us to get in. A cop drove by as we were getting in and turned around. Derek, the driver, told him we were friends and had just called for him to pick us up so the cop drove off. Derek was just a little older than us and in the army. He was really cool and gave us a ride all the way to the hostel. We passed a turtle in the middle of the road and he stopped the car and saved it. We got a little lost but he didn't give up until we got to where we needed to be. So finally just a couple hours later we made it 40 miles. Mr. Ludwick, the ex-mayor runs a hostel and cooks dinner and breakfast for hikers on donation only. He told us a touching story of his late wife who thought it would be nice if someone helped them while they were in need and thought wouldn't it be nice if they could help someone in need. After she passed away he made that possible and this year alone has helped over 200 hikers. We watched Paul Potts sing opera on Britains Got Talent. The key phrase was vincer2, which means I will win. It was encoraging and just what I needed to keep pushing me towards Maine. However, now I am going to finish August 10 so I can make it back for orientation at ETSU.