Date: 2004-05-08
From: Tom Leonard Leanto

To: Lee, MA
Miles today: 2.0

Another cold night. Although I don¢t believe we had a frost, I definitely needed hat and raincoat on this morning for warmth. Once the sun got up and I was hiking, shorts and tee shirt were fine.Old Porky was roaming around the shelter last night, but I sent him away with a word and a shine of my light. Otherwise it was a quiet night of sleep. It¢s really amazing how vivid my dreams are out here, compared to those at home. Even if I¢m partially awake, they still seem very much alive.Once on the trail I went through some very interesting rock formations, one with a deep chasm in it. After that is was an easy walk down to the road where the fun began. There was no indication at the road crossing where the trail went and no double blaze to indicate a direction. Not finding a continuation across the road I started down the road and began to find blazes on the phone poles. I followed these all the way to Rt. 23, where a double blaze indicated a right turn. So I walked up Rt. 23, following the faded white blazes until there were no more. Then I walked back toward Montgomery and found what looked like a white blaze going up Old Montgomery Road, so I followed that roaduntil it came back onto Rt. 23. OK, keep going on Rt. 23 and look for some more blazes. And there they were, only they were brown, like they had been painted over some time ago. This is where those maps would have helped. Anyway, decision time. What to do?I realized I was going to miss a section of trail because of having to leave the trail earlier than planned for a wedding and then having a rendezvous with some friends up the trail a week later. So I decided to hitch into Lee and try to pick up my food box before the Post Office closed at noon. As I was walking back through Montgomery I walked by a guy who was working on a burned out house and he asked how the hiking was, so we chatted and I told him what I was doing. He told me to hop in his Jeep and he would take me to Great Barrington since he had an errand to do anyway. So he dropped me at Rt. 7 and I soon had a ride with a young man on languages. He spent a year in Japan studying Japanese and will be taking Portugese at Middlebury College this summer. He got me to Rt. 102 in Stockbridge. I stopped by the bakery there and then sat out front in the sun eating my pastry and juice, and had a nice conversation with a man from NC. Then off down the road and a quick hitch that got me to the Mass Pike at Lee. The journey is always so interesting.I walked through the village to the Post Office, got my food box, went to a nearby pavilion to sort through the box and take what I needed. I then refilled the box with some stuff to send home and went back inside to mail it. When I got to the desk I asked for an envelope, some stamps and some packing tape. "Don¢t have any packing tape." A Post Office without packing tape? Never heard of it. Most Post Offices hare been very accommodating to hikers, but not here. You could tell by the place just how it was run. Very few supplies, employee complaining about everything and how difficult things were. Anyway, I made a quick exit from the PO and was off to the local hardware store to buy packing tape, then back in time to mail the box before the PO closed. I left the packing tape on the counter. They¢ll probably never notice it, but I hope the next hiker does.Now I cold relax, get a room at the Sunset Motel, go to the Pizza Hut for a salad bar lunch and do my laundry for the first time in almost two weeks. Phew! Then some time catching up on my trail journals as I watched the end of the Red Sox game, 9-1 against KC, Schilling going the distance. Go Sox!!