Date: 2016-07-12
From: Hemlocks Shelter

To: Great Barrington, MA
Miles today: 8.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Verge and I took our time this morning; why not?! We only had 8 miles to do! Hurray for near-o-day!Everyone had already cleared out of camp, so we had a dance party as we packed everything up. It was super fun! On our way hiking to town, we got a splendid view of the town covered in thick clouds and the mountains in the background; it was so odd and beautiful. It seemed like the sun should but off all the clouds, but it wasn't. Very cool. People have definitely been right about mosquitoes in Massachusetts though. They are AWFUL! It's especially annoying because they're worst near water sources, but all the water sources are just mucky mud with no water, so we get all the bugs and no water. Bleh. You seriously can't even stop for a minute or they'll eat you. Thankfully, I ran away from them into the sunshine on a nice bug free bridge (over water we couldn't drink because of nearby farmlands), and I ran into a Southbound thru-hiker! His mms was Breezy; he was quite friendly. He even told us there was trail magic water a half mile ahead! Yes! At trail magic water, we ran into Scavenger, the Jingle, Sweets, and Wheels passed us, and then we met Slam. We'd heard so much about Slam it was fun to actually meet her. She is a 20 year old who is currently finishing her triple crown! Awesome! I also found out she's going to Hampshire College in the fall, which is in the five college group with UMass Amherst (where I go to school)! Super cool. We exchanged information, so maybe I'll meet up with her sometime in "real life."We finally got to the road where you get into Great Barrington. We were planning on hitching because it's a couple miles of road walking in the hot sun on pavement, but they were doing all sorts of road construction, which basically made hit him dangerously difficult. We decided to walk past it all and try our luck post-construction. It was more difficult than my first attempt hitching, but some very nice guy pulled over and drove us to the laundromat, which we had apparently almost walked all the way to. He was very sweet and wished he could help us more. Thank you, guy! We hung out, did laundry, had an amazing grocery store lunch (our favorite kind of lunch) of cheap sushi, a bag of mixed greens, a plum, and a peach. Mmmmm! I then "yogied" a ride from a lady at Big Y, and she drove us to the Days Inn down the street where we were splitting a room with Jingle, Wheels, and Sweets. After a refreshing shower, Verge and I hit the town! Dinner time! (The others went to do laundry and their resupply). We explored a little and ended up picking Thai food (we've never tried it). I got a spicy eggplant dish, and Verge got a veggie and peanut sauce dish, and we shared. SO amazing! Loved it. We then went to SoCo for dessert and got a huge delicious froyo. My tastebuds were in heaven. Have you ever had caramel froyo with raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, and warm cookie pieces, drowned in hot fudge and caramel sauce? Well you should. Wow. Just wow. We made our way back to the room, and we all hung out and watched Julia Roberts kill it in Pretty Woman while drinking some wine. Fantastic.