Date: 2009-08-04
To: Bear Mtn.
Miles today: 0.0

I'm finally at a place where I'm once again able to type you an update once again. I'll tell you a little later how I got here but let me catch you up to how I got to this point.During our zero day in Dalton Mass, Rob took us to a place called the Misty Moonlight Diner which is your typical old style 50's diner. The amazing thing about this diner is the fact that it serves the Godzilla omlet. The Godzilla Omlet is comprised of 12 eggs, 12 veggies of varying sorts, 4 types of meat, and 4 cheeses (which are equivalent to an entire block of cheese) Here's the website (http://www.themistymoonlightdiner.com/The_Godzilla.php) check it out. As you can see on the website if you eat this HUGE Omlet in 30 minutes or less you get a sweet T-shirt. Well I was up for the challenge. In case you don't know, hiking really beefs up your appetite. So I ordered the huge thing and actually finished the darn thing! It was amazing! I got pretty sick after finishing it but it was AWESOME! It was the most food I've ever eaten in one sitting ever! Whew!The next day I got up and we headed to Upper Goose Pond Cabin where there is a full cabin on this sweet lake, but there were 20 miles of trail between us and the cabin, but we made it! Unfortunately it was too late for us to get a bunk in the cabin but we tented through a crazy thunderstorm! But, there were blueberry pancakes and coffee for all of the hikers the next morning, totally worth it! And we had owls hooting the night before as we were falling asleep talk about awesome! The worst part about getting down into Mass and Conn have been the mosquitos. They're really out for blood. I sort of thing of them as a big gang of mosquitos that never stop bothering hikers, and I can't decide what's worse, rain or mosquitos...I'm going to go with mosquitos on this one....Along with the mosquitos came other types of wildlife, we saw our first bear the other day and in addition have seen TONS of deer. When we were in Mass we had a starring contest with a doe for about 5 minutes and she finally scurried off into the tall grass! Amazing! After some amazing views from Some of the beautiful Conn mountains we headed into Salisbury CT. It was the epitome of what a New England town should be. It also had the oldest public library in the Nation. So that was super cool to see and walk in! We did a re-supply in Salisbury but spent the night in field in the middle of town. It was a great camping spot! (see pictures) So this section of trail in CT and NY has been lacking on Hostels so we've had to do the best we can with what we can find. So 7 days out of Dalton, we get our first shower! It's amazing what a shower can do for morale! We stopped in at a Hydroelectric pland and we took a shower in the outdoor open, cold water shower that they had! But I was clean! YAY!!! We also met a family that night who was out for thier first backpacking trip. I really just felt plain bad for them because they looked like they were having no fun at all....and they would probably never come backpacking again! We gave them as many pointers as we could but I hope they stuck it out. Oh well...Oh and crazy encounter. A guy that I've been gettting AT emails from since before I left, I finally passed on the trail a couple days back. He was a friend of a friend and I'd never met him before but I was keeping tabs on his progress and we met him in the middle of a cow field in NY. Just cool, the world is a small place for sure, and that same day I met a guy from Greer...but he lived over on the other side of town so I didn't know him, bummer.   But back to the cow field. So Brewer and I are in this cowfield and we walk right in over the fence like we're supposed to and all of a sudden about 15 cows come right up to us and line up in a perfect line. We walk futher into the pasture and they follow us, lining up in a perfect line again...it was sort of weird but cool at the same time. AND at that point in the trip we were exactly 1/3 of the way done with the trail!! WOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!So now for how I got to the Computer. We hiked down off the hills of NY that overlook the Hudson River. We're walking right over the bridge and make it to the other side where we enter Bear Mtn. State park. As we're walking out of the very first exhibit we run into a really nice couple (Shawn and Jill) and thier awesome red headed kids, except their son Jake who from what he's told me is a freaking awesome skateboarder, better thank I'll ever be. The kid can do a kickflip off of a drop and he's just about to be 13. So cool! Anyhow they brought us back to their house which just happens to be at West Point. So they were super nice, feeding us lunch and dinner and giving us a sweet tour of the campus (he is a teacher and teaches boxing& skiing!) we even got to go into the stadium and see part of a football practice! See pics. So it's been a great place to chill and hang out and answer all sorts of questions about the trail! I love to tell people all about what we do out here on the trail! Trail Angels are amazing...the end. Until next time, hope all is well!