Date: 2005-07-06
From: William Brien Memorial Shelter 

To: Bear Mountain Bridge
Miles today: 8.9
Weather: haze

Well, it rained like hell last night. The dozen kids that were here, never bothered to put up their tent flies last night. At some point in the middle of the night, they got wet and jumped out and attempted to put the flies on, but they had never properly tensioned the tents down. I'm sure it was raining hard enought that they weren't going to sit there and try to re-stake them. So, we got up this morning to see 1/2 dozen tents with the flies thrown haphazardly over them, completely sealing them in. One way or the other, they got wet. They probably got wet when it started raining, and then they got soaked when there was no way for the air to ventilate the tent. We never found out because we left before they even got out of their tents. One of the counselors asked Vern to start making noise to let them know that we were leaving. Vern started making bird calls and noises, but they never stirred. We were out of there by 6:30. The humidity was pretty horrendous. I was instantly dripping wet. I stayed wet the rest of the day. We were walking through a cloud. The sweat was heavy enough that it was actually running down my pants, my socks and down into my shoes. My shoes got totally drenched with sweat. I've actually been pretty miserable the last couple of days. I'm sure it's physiological in nature. I have been complaining about low energy levels going uphill. I have been really short on patience and irritable. Harriman State Park continues to be a monster. It's kicking our asses. It's pretty rough going through there and I was getting a little irritated that I still hadn't heard from Mike and Estee about what was going on with their friend Eric. We were getting close to that point that we had to start making decisions and alternate plans on what we were going to do if he didn't pick us up, because, now we were an hour away from the pick up point in Bear Mountain.Vern and I formulated a plan, that if he didn't pick us up, we would get a hotel room in Fort Montgomery and call a car rental agency, take the rest of the day off to do our laundry, shower and eat, and in the morning, take a ride to Paramus, New Jersey to go to CampMor. We were sitting at the tunnel that goes from Bear Mountain State Park into the zoo when we finally got ahold of Mike and Estee. They hooked us up with Eric. We talked to him and found out at that point that there was a serious misunderstanding here. Eric does not live 2 miles from the Trail at Bear Mountain State Park. He lives near Kent, Connecticut, 50 miles by road. So, he was still willing to pick us up, he said it would be an hour before he got there. So, we went ahead with that. I tried to get a soda from the pavillion, but the Coke machine was broken and that got me even more upset. Regardless, we walked through the zoo, and right by the bridge, there's a traffic circle, and we sat there until 12:30 when Eric pulled in with his maroon Silverado. We jumped in the truck and chatted with him on the way back to his house. We told him what was going on, we appologized like crazy that he was going to have to drive 200 miles because we were getting picked up at the wrong place. He said he really didn't care and that he did alot of driving. Eric is a tremendous guy, a real good heart. Apparently, he's a real good friend of Mike and Estee. They met through riding Harleys. He's kind of a wild guy, but a great guy, too. We really enjoyed staying with him. On the way back to his house, he took us to Dick's Sporting Goods, where Vern went through their shoe selection and finally selected a pair of Merril's. The shoes we had bought at Walmart a couple of days ago served their purpose, but they were already falling apart. What can you expect, taking them through the stuff we did. For $17, they did what they were supposed to do. At Dick's, Vern got shoes and another pair of insoles. I poked around there and ended up getting some more Promethrin spray for my clothing and a can of waterproofing. We jumped in the truck and went to Eric's house. Eric lives pretty much out in the boondocks. He lives out in the woods in this huge, 2 story log house that he built. It has a full basement, it's a pretty impressive place. We spent a couple of hours there, hanging out with him, drinking Coronas that we had picked up along the way. We ate alot of leftover 4th of July chicken and potato salad as we could.He had to pick up his son, because his son's car had broken down, so he took off to get him. In the meantime, we went ahead and took showers and got our laundry started. We sat around and talked to his friend, Ken, who is staying there with him for awhile. Ken has a pretty big interest in the Trail. He says it's one of his lifetime dreams. He was picking our brains on all kinds of things about it. Eric came back and started cooking for us. He made some really good barbeque ribs, and took the leftover chicken and shredded it and mixed it with barbeque sauce, really good stuff.   We sat around until 11:00, drinking beers. We laid out on the livingroom floor. It was kind of funny, Eric was sitting in his chair, talking to us, and 3 seconds later he was snoring. We went ahead and laid our stuff out on the floor and started sacking out and Eric woke up and asked, "Do you want me to turn off the TV when I go to bed?" We said, "Yes, please." He immediately went back to sleep and started snoring again. It turns out that he never really got out of the chair until 4 o'clock. It didn't matter to us because it had been a long day and we both slept well. It was a long day, but a good one.