Date: 2006-08-18
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Miles today: 72.4

NEW JERSEYA few drops of rainfall almost kept us inside at the church hostel in DWG. We've been wet so much out here that it's one of those things we want to avoid if possible. Knowing NJ was just across the Delaware River got us moving again though. As we neared the river, we could see more and more destruction from all the recent flooding. The Ramada Inn was closed with all the furniture out in the parking lot. Trees along the river held debris in their branches 10 to 15 feet high. Fences had been taken out. It will take some time for the people in this area to clean up the mess.   About halfway through our first day in NJ, we came to Sunfish Pond. It is the first glacial lake we would come to on the trail. It is very picturesque there and many hikers swim in the pond. We would have been tempted except for two things: it was raining when we got there and there was a dead frog in the water right where we had had access to it.   As we passed Sunfish Pond, we were introduced to what would become my worst nightmare on the trail. It turns out that mosquitoes rule NJ. The rocks don't end there either. In PA, there were gnats constantly hovering just in front of my vision, frequently diving right into my eyes, making it difficult to watch where I was stepping on all those rocks. Now, the mosquitoes had taken over.    The first night at the Mohican Center campground, we were able to get showers and take refuge in the lodge. We sat around talking with Heald and Chou Chou for a while before running back to our tents to get away from the biting little beasts. We had no idea how bad it was going to get. NJ is very swampy and with all the recent rain, there was standing water everywhere. We ran out of Deet the second day in NJ while staying at Brinks Road Shelter.At this shelter, mosquitoes would land literally dozens at a time on your body and there was no way to fight them all off. We stayed inside the tent as much as possible, but we were covered in bites. The morning we left Brinks shelter was my worst moment on the trail. I started out wearing rain gear to get out of the area where they were swarming the worst. We noticed if you keep moving, they're not quite as bad. It was very hot out in mid-July, so when we got out into an exposed area in the sunlight, I took the rain gear off. The mosquitoes were still very bad. As I walked as fast as I could over varied terrain, I was swatting wildly with my bandana sort of like a ninja using nun-chucks. To no avail. They were getting in my ears, eyes, nose and mouth. By the time I inhaled the third one, I lost my mind. Right there on the trail I started to cry and wondered if I had what it takes to finish this hike. I couldn't believe I was defeated by mosquitoes.Mudflap said at that moment, "Don't worry; there's a road a couple miles ahead. We'll get off the trail and find some Deet at a store." That did ease my mind some and I made it to the road without dying of mosquito bites. We only hiked four miles that day, went to a motel, cleaned up, then shopped for repellent.   The rest of NJ was not quite as bad, but I used the Deet the rest of the way. It was so hot during this time that we sent our sleeping bags ahead to Dalton, MA. We have silk liners for our bags that served as a light-weight sheet instead.   Between the misery of rocks and gnats in PA and the heat and mosquitoes in NJ, I started thinking each of the states were some level of purgatory out of Dante's Inferno. We were hoping it would get better soon.