Date: 2016-05-12
From: Hammersly Ridge

To: Kent, CT
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: light rain

Well, I must say it'been fun walking through so many states. And relatively quickly. On our other long trails it involved two to three states max. Of course California was like 1,400 trail miles so there is a difference there. But now we are walking to and through some states I've never been to so that's kind of exciting. The trail here in the northeast sort of undulates. Now on the edge of one state, now on the edge of another, and the finds itself back in the first state. All within the space of a day sometimes. Today we passed from New York to Connecticut and it was very cool. I like this state. We had a goal of getting in to the town of Kent. We needed to resupply. We hoped to hit an outfitters and a shoe store that sold inserts for my feet. We also hoped to go by the library and take care of some business. We also needed to do laundry really badly, since there was no way to do laundry back in Greenwood Lake, NY. And by now we really stinketh. Oh, and we wanted to hit a restaurant and get something to eat of course. Even with so much to do, we were hoping to maybe hitch back out to the trail and hike a few miles. So, we hiked hard all day and came out on the road that takes you to Kent at around 3:30pm. We stuck out our thumb and didn't have long to wait. A nice gentleman who has section hiked parts of the AT picked us up and gave us a ride to the outfitters. We picked up a few things there and the owner told us some disturbing news. She said that there was a female hiker missing from the Kent area and asked us if we'd seen or heard anything about it.   Apparently the girls backpack was found but no girl. That was not good surely. I said a prayer in my heart for her and her family.We walked into town and went to all the places I mentioned above with a few caveats.   At the library I google the missing girl backpacker in the Kent area and was somewhat relieved? to find out it was a guy dressed girlishly. And the backpack turned out to be a drug drop. So that had a much better ending than what I envisioned when I first heard about it. The other thing was that the laundromat, which had no sign marking it as such, had received some bad visits from some pretty stupid through hikers. We were told by some local business owners that she may or may not let you do your laundry there. We went in and looked for her to be sure it was okay, but no one was there. We didn't want to get kicked out with our clothes half done and sopping wet, so we left. Not smelling like roses.We ate dinner at The Pasta Garden. Now it was getting a bit late because of everything we had done. The resupplying had taken a while too. There was really no place to go so we thought we might hitch back out to the trail. But as we were walking away, a woman called after us. Excuse me are you guys through hikers? When she learned that we were, she asked if she could take our picture. It turns out that she works for the Chamber of Commerce and she keeps a Facebook page. She likes to include the through hikers when they come into town.   We chatted with her for a while and one thing lead to another and soon she was driving us around trying to help us find a place to pitch our tent for the night. She made a bunch of phone calls and finally a business friend of hers had a grassy lot in the back of her store. And that's where we ended up tonight. But for the kindness of strangers we would have been stumbling about in the dark on the trail looking perhaps in vain for a flat spot to camp on. Because according to the trail guide, it was a climb out of the gate. We were so grateful to her for taking the time, and for caring for these stinky, smelly hikers.So, our tent is set up on the lawn. The people from town laughed and talked around us as life for them went on as usual. We are tucked in and feeling grateful for the people who have been so kind to us. With that thought, I'll catch you later! Road Runner