Date: 2018-07-12
From: Pine Swamp Brook Shelter

To: Riga Shelter
Miles today: 18.7
Weather: scattered clouds

DAY 128Still warm and buggy this morning, so we had breakfast with our long sleeve shirts on. Once we got going we climbed up on the ridge and shortly came to a view which they call hang glider view. Mary stretched there while we looked down upon the Limestone Connecticut race track. Once we came off the ridge we needed to cross the Housatonic again, and there was quite a road walk down across the bridge, out in through a cornfield, and by the local high school. Then the trail headed back into the woods and kind of continued parallel to the road for a while before we crossed it and then followed the Housatonic down to a parking lot. At the parking lot we were able to take a short side trip to the Toymaker cafe. The Toymaker cafe is a really neat place run by a couple. The wife, who is an author, and the husband, who is a former motorcycle racer and now restores British motorcycles. They started the cafe only opening for 4 days a week so they would have plenty of time to work on their real loves, writing and restoring motorcycles. Unfortunately, the cafe is so popular that it takes up most of their time. It's unfortunate for them, but fortunate for us as we had a delicious lunch there consisting of nice homemade sandwiches and home brewed iced tea. After we ate we talked to the owner for quite some time about his motorcycle racing exploits. He knew all about Laconia, New Hampshire and he had raced all around the world, but particularly here in the Northeast and up in Loudon, New Hampshire. It was really fun talking to him and as we talked we noticed what we really should have had was the waffles. They serve breakfast all day and they specialize in Belgian waffles. The ones we saw come out looked delicious, and we told him we would be back by sometime and try them. We met a couple from Canada that was traveling by motorcycle and had stopped in for lunch. They started asking us questions about the trail and wondered if she would be able to do it. Her daughter had started hiking the trail this year, and they've been down to support her. Now she's thinking she would like to do the trail and had quite a few questions for us, and we tried to be encouraging. We finally dragged ourselves away, very glad we had made the stop. Coming out of town we met a couple of hikers that were taking a shower at the outdoor shower, and then resting in the shade before they continued on the trail. We still had more miles to do, so we headed down to check out the falls and then we were soon back up to the ridge again, where we passed Giants thumb and quickly went out into a field that had a nice view of the mountains we were about to hike. We still had quite a climb to do, and by the time we got to the shelter we were coming in by headlamp. We had to scurry around to find a decent site, and quickly set up and got our camp chores done. We are camped on a wooden platform tonight, so we have a decent site. We passed the 1500-mile mark today, so we're happy about that. And, supposedly the shelter area has a beautiful view of the sunrise, which we hope to get up and enjoy in the morning.