Date: 2008-05-10
From: Upper Goose Cabin

To: Dalton
Miles today: 21.5
Weather: clear sky

During lunch today I felt a small bump on my forehead and began playing with it. It immediately grew to the size of a quarter and both Stride and Vagus commented on it "What do you have on your head? It's huge. What happened?". Two miles later we stopped at a shelter and the welt was completely gone. Strange.The black flies have been getting worse. They sometimes make it impossible to stop for any amount of time, but thankfully they really are not bad if you are moving (the swarms tend to follow you around, but they don't seem to bite much until you stop). It sounds like I can expect to deal with them until I get to Canada.We passed a hiker from the Czech Republic early in the day, crossed a piece of trail flooded by a Beaver Dam and hiked one of our longer days in awhile.Coming into Dalton we passed Tom Levardi's house. Tom lets hikers camp in his yard and he came out of his house as we walked by. Problem was we were planning on staying at Rob Bird's house/hostel. So we awkwardly made conversation until Stride asked about the Bird Cage. Tom graciously called Rob, who drove over and picked us up.I had stayed at the Bird Cage in 2004 with Roadster. Rob has one of the biggest dogs I've seen, a lab/bulldog cross named Tinker that has to be upward of 150 pounds. Rob shuttles hikers out to eat, slackpacks them and basically does anything he can to help them out. He is a chain smoker, a guitarist and singer and a big Red Sox fan (they beat my twins 5-2 today). We found out that Sulu and Dozer had zeroed the day before at the Bird Cage and had thought we would arrive yesterday.Our plans are still up in the air. Stride is probably going home from somewhere in Vermont and I'm likely going to skip up from southern Vermont to Killington to take a more leisurely hike on the northern half of the Long Trail.After a week or so of doldrums the gang is in better spirits so I think we all will part on a good note with lots of great memories.* * *Skit's bits:* Countries we guessed the Czech hiker was from: Spain, Italy and Brazil (we were not even close).* Name we had given him: Pablo (it turned out to be Marten).* Place we ate dinner at: Old Country Buffet (Stride and Vagus had not eaten at one before).* Items I had for $11.43: Chicken, steak, mashed potatoes, salad, muffin, roast beef, ham, fish, fruit, pasta salad, two glasses milk, two glasses coke, one large soup bowl filled with ice cream.* Time limit I was given to find a Long Trail book when I was dropped off at Barnes and Noble: 5 minutes.* Time it took me: 7 minutes (I had to wait behind two people in line).* Page my photo was on in Rob Bird's 2004 picture album: The penultimate page (I was there in October)* Page I was on this year: The second page.* * *This date in really bad trail poetry:The Strittlagus is going the way of the dinosaur,suffering the same fate as many others before;what killed it is not exactly known,though some replicas remain built of stone;Records have been kept of its strange and exotic way,photos, footprints, notes and video to replay;but only three will really know the tragedy of its perishing,for those three made many memories they will long be cherishing.