Date: 2017-09-06
From: The Priest Shelter

To: Hwy 60, then Stanimal's Hostel in Glasgow
Miles today: 20.6
Weather: fog

¢I¢ll see you soon,¢ I said to Not-A-Moose as she left The Priest Shelter, heading off into the rain. We should have talked more. No discussion of where to meet up, say, in case it rained all day.At The Priest Shelter hikers make their trail confessions. Indeed, so many entries begin, ¢Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned¢¦¢I¢ve thought about The Priest register on and off for weeks. What would I write? Why does it feel more then odd, but wrong? Confessing your sins is good for you, right? In the end, here¢s what I wrote early this morning. (This will also be an exercise in deciphering my handwriting. You can see what Frodo has to deal with every day.) (Frodo: He told me that he really tried to write legibly, so what I normally get is quite a bit worse.)  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...It rains and it rains. We stay near the 4,000-foot level, going down a few hundred feet and then back up. http://www.trailjournals.com/j... The trail¢s pretty good, but when will I see NAM? I go in to the next shelter after 6.6 miles. No NAM. She didn¢t stop in. In the rain you want to keep on walking. We are aiming for U.S. Highway 60 where we¢ll go off trail for a zero day in town. Is she going to hike there without really stopping? The shelter was the obvious meet-up point. The next shelter is 10 more miles along, only 4 miles from the road, and a half mile off the trail. Will I not know where she is until after 10 hours of hiking, when I hit the road? I¢m not worrying hard, but I¢m concerned.At the shelter this morning a hiker is sitting out the day of rain. I met Turtle Trax back in Maine. He was heading north to Katahdin, having started at Harper¢s Ferry. Sean was with me. It was a day after Mahoosuc Notch. Eons ago. Now he¢d flipped back south, starting again at Harper¢s Ferry to hike to Georgia. And he was cold. The weather has turned. A week ago he would have been warm with what he had.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...I have an old mountain folk tune running through my head. ¢It rained all night, and it rained all day, singing Polly Wolly Doodle all the day.¢ What I want to know is, if it¢s raining day and night, who the heck wants to sing Polly Wolly Doodle anything? (Frodo: I¢m not sure if he learned weird lyrics to that, or if he just made these up, but I¢ve never heard that version of the song.)¢Scout!¢ I am 10 miles along. No NAM. And then from 75 feet of the trail, under a large rock overhang, I hear that cry. I see her pump her umbrella up and down. I am very relieved. We are both gleeful to see each other. We¢ve learned a lesson, too. We both may be accomplished hikers, but we can¢t be casual about meeting up. We both cram more food in our pockets. No dry place for any lunch. Walk on.Apples. Apples on the ground. Apples up in the air. No, it¢s not trail magic, but up here on a high ridge are the remnants of an apple orchard. We each have two.  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...  http://www.trailjournals.com/j...Up a bit. Down a bit. Eight miles left. Then six. Then four. How many times were we teased by a few minutes of no rain, into thinking, ¢It¢s stopping.¢ No. Fooled you.But umbrellas keep our shirts and shorts largely dry. Trailside brush scours our legs, re-wetting them often.I am able by phone to reach a hostel that runs a shuttle from highway 60. The name of the highway makes it sound big, but when we get there the road is largely an empty two-lane with a big truck roaring by every few minutes, but not much more than that. And who in their right mind would pick up two hikers that look like damp dogs with silver umbrellas?I write this after having showered and eaten ¢ I barely won the battle with a cheese steak sandwich and garlic bread. We are in Stanimal¢s Hostel in teensy Glasgow. Happy and looking forward to a zero after 140 miles in 7 days.