Date: 2016-05-08
From: Greenwood Lake, NY 

To: Mombasha Lake 
Miles today: 7.0
Weather: overcast clouds

When my children were very young, I used to read them a Sesame Street story called 'Grovers Bad Awful Day'. In it, just about everything that could go wrong with poor Grovers day, did. His mother was there to give him love and support so it was all good. Why do I bring this up? Because today we could have written the sequel.   The title would be ' Roadrunner and Will's Bad Awful Day' of course.   And just so you know, unlike Grover, my mom wasn't there to make it all better.We woke up at our usual time and got showered packed up and ready to get back out on the trail by 6am. We looked out the window and surprise, surprise, it was raining. Hard. This makes day 8 or 9 of pretty much daily rain for us. All of our stuff is finally dry and so we decide that it's not worth it and we will wait it out until it quits. We both rest and nap for awhile. It continues to rain and so we start to entertain alternative plans. We could spend another night off trail and get some things done. But not at the Linden. We searched and surfed the internet but to no avail, we didn't really have any other options for lodging. Our next idea was to take the transit bus to Warwick, NY to pick up some new shoes for me. Remember those beautiful blue shoes I bought about 3 weeks ago in Waynesboro, PA?   Well, the rocks just totally chewed them up. Especially my right one. It was so bad that it was causing strain and injury to that leg. So we decided after much discussion, to head to Warwick where there was a Athletic shoe store called Boots to Sneakers. We pulled up the transit schedule and looked at it long and hard.   There was a bus headed to Warwick from the park and ride at the other end of town.   We left the room about 9:40 to arrive early for the 11:16 bus.By this time it had stopped raining, thankfully.   We sat there for well over an hour and sure enough, at about 11:20 am the bus pulled up to our little bus stop. ......and kept right on going. We yelled after it but that didn't matter. Apparently this was not the correct bus stop.   So now it was going for 11:30 and the shoe store was only open from 11am to 2pm. We decided to try and hitch. So we walked all the way back down to the other end of town and stuck our thumbs out. It took us a while but finally a nice guy picked us up. He was going to Warwick which is about 10 miles down the road, but he had never heard of the shoe store I was trying to get to. To his credit, he pulled over and asked a couple of random people once we got to town but they had never heard of it either. Uh oh, now we're getting nervous . We thank him and hop out in the middle of the downtown.   I ask the first likely couple. They know the store and where it's located. Unfortunately, it's nowhere near here. Turns out the store has a Warwick address but is nearly in Vernon, NY.   Are you seeing the bad awful part of our day here?Still determined to go to the shoe store because of how bad my shoes are, we decide to try and hitch there. It's now around 1pm. We stand on the sidewalk and stick our thumbs out. This is going to be a tough one.   But (spoiler alert) this is where our bad awful day starts to turn around.   As we're standing there, a woman on foot sees us and asks us where we are trying to get to.   We tell her, and she also knows where it is. She says wait here and I will bring my car here and take you there.   Oh Happy Day!!!! When she came back she had her husband with her ( I can just imagine that conversation. ' You told complete strangers you would drive them where? They could be anyone! !). They drove us to the shoe store but it was closed when we got there! No, I'm just kidding. It was open and we really appreciated their kind generosity. Really liked the store and the owner was great. He had a good selection of shoes I could use. So I bought a pair of the Brooks Cascadias. Asics weren't doing me right. Will bought a pair of shoes too. Then it was back out to the road to hitch back to the trail. A super nice young man picked us up.   He was from the area but had lived and worked on the west coast for several years.   He had even been a trail worker on the PCT. Cool. We had him drop us off at the Bellvale Farms Creamery. They use the cream from their own cows to make this ice cream, and believe me it is amazing!The ice cream place was next to the trail and so we started out hiking with happy bellies. Today's hike took us through the woods and on the rocky ridge. It was Mother's Day so we saw a lot of families taking a little hike together. (Not my best Mother's Day by the way ). We were nearing the end of our hiking day. We needed to hit a stream and pick up some water.   As we stepped out onto a road there were a couple of guys and a dog just finishing a hike. Will asked them if they had seen any streams nearby. They had, but one of them, we would find out later his name was Brannin) invited us down to his house to get our water. And then thought a moment and said. You're welcome to pitch your tent on my lawn. How kind! We looked at each other and said sure! Well, Brannin not only gave us water and a place to pitch our tent, he made us dinner as well. And we all shared stories from our hikes and our lives.Today started out as a bad, awful day. But through the human kindness of all the people who gave us rides and then Brandons amazing generosity, this day was totally turned around. Sometimes when we least expect it, kindness heals our hurt and pain. Okay, well, long day folks. So I guess I'll turn in. Catch you later! Road Runner