Date: 2006-08-03
From: Manchester, Vermont

To: Peru Peak Shelter
Miles today: 10.1
Weather: moderate rain

We've done it again, we got caught up, sucked in..we took another zero day! Very much unintentionally, but, well, it happened anyway.It is funny what can happen in the course of a day out here. We should have learned by now to always expect and well, welcome the unexpected. But Swanson and I did get up yesterday with 100% intentions of hiking out that morning, but it went kind of like this....First, we woke up and began packing so that we could go have breakfast and hitch back to the trail before the day got too hot. Weather alerts were everywhere calling for over a 100 degree day.But, when we walked outside the heat, already, hit us like a mack truck. So we went over to the diner to have breakfast trying to convince ourselves it wasn't so bad, we just had to hydrate.Well, as I was on my second cup of coffee, wishing I had two more plates full of eggs benedict, it occurred to me that we were sitting in an air conditioned diner and still sweating. So, we decided to go hang out around town until late afternoon when there would be a better chance of it being cooler. Then, we'd hike out. We were actually excitd about possibly a little night hiking.We got a hitch right to the Manchester Bookstore (heaven) and hung out there for a good two hours. What and incredible, cozy bookstore.Here, came the next bump in the road. When we had totally exhausted the bookstore we ran across the street to the Outfitter (also quite heavenly) and just as we walked in there's Charlie Foxtrot and Brownie and Soulman. They were staying at Brownie's parents Cabin in Stratton, zeroing to avoid the heat.At first, they just offered us a ride with them to the grocery store to pick up a few things. Then, as we were browsing around the store, they hit us in our weak spot and invited us to avoid the heat and come stay at the cabin with them for the night. Two things hooked us: 1:Spaghetti and beer. 2: Charlie Foxtrot's last night since he was taking three weeks off.We only struggled a little, but before we knew it we had bought with them all the ingredients for a fantastic spaghetti dinner in a wonderful Vermont cabin and we are very glad we stayed.We had a great night. We played pool, darts, board games and even got to wash our socks. The best part was we all even got our own beds! Which we didn't hit until 2:30 AM, by far one of the latest nights we've had out here. But, well, well worth it.So, that is how we were again distracted from our path. And the low miles today were due to such a late bedtime and a late start because of a pancakes and sausage breakfast, thanks to Brownie and Soulman.Nowhere else in our lives will we meet someone for the very first time and two days later end up in their car on the way to their cabin acting like you've been friends since high school. It's amazing.This morning, they dropped us off at the trailhead around 12:00noon and off we went to climb our second big ski mountain, Bromley. We were sad to have to say our goodbyes to Foxtrot but hopefully we will stay in touch.Bromley Mountain was a cool climb. The last little bit of it was actually up the ski slope and it took you right to the ski lifts. It was pretty wild to be up there in that atmosphere without our snow boards. But, it was cool to be hanging out on ski lifts in August.That was probably our biggest event today. Still lots of mud and moose tracks. But no moose....The forest was very dark and kind of sad today. The clouds were blocking our sun. But it kept the head off.Tomorrow, hopefully, we can kick out some big miles...we have our eye on New Hampshire!