Date: 2010-08-08
From: Barnard

To: Happy Hill Shelter
Miles today: 16.6
Weather: overcast clouds

08 August Sunday ¢ 16.6m to Happy Hill ShelterThe dew fall every night in the valley¢s of Vermont, soaks my tent like it¢s been in a thunderstorm. My tent is soaking wet every time I sleep out from beneath an overhanging structure. I had grand illusions of drinking coffee and catching up on my journal at the store down the road but they¢re not open until 8am. The whole town is reeling from the street dance. Everyone is sleeping in. I wrote in my journal by the smoldering embers from the previous night campfire. They didn¢t burn all the wood! That¢s apparent by all the sleep I got. The rooster has been crowing all morning and I can¢t believe it hasn¢t woke everyone up. Stretcher walked back from the house to check on his tarp. He slept inside last night. The conversation between Stretcher and I must have awaken Grommet.Yahtzee and I walk down to the store and I get some 100% Arabic coffee! I resisted the urge to buy more food while I walked around the shelves in the store. Grommet came into the store next and I buy her a cup out of gratitude for their kindness to us. She¢s drinking it from a mason jar which reminds me of Lish. Grommet summited Katahdin with Loon, my trail journal inspiration. Grommet told us that she was in Gorham this time last year, which makes me realize I¢m playing behind the pack. I could rush and get there but why? What would it accomplish to speed up and miss all these awesome adventure opportunities?Yahtzee, Grommet and I return to the farm. Hot Foot and Tree are still asleep. We¢re getting a ride back from Grommet by 9am. After 8:30am I found out that she¢d been told to arrive at 10am and there was no hurry. There¢s no hurry because everyone¢s home recovering from the street dance. There was no alcohol allowed at the dance by the way. These people were sober and they were most uninhibited. Yahtzee, Grommet, Lisa, and I played with Meridian and her bottle caps. Meridian was trying to sell them to us as we heckled and messed with her logic. She¢s very quick for a 6 year old. It must be the pirate in her. Eventually he boys wake up and went to get breakfast at the store. They took soooo long! They said it was the restaurant crew taking their sweet time. The people patronizing the place weren¢t in any particular hurry either so that made it take even longer. Everyone was at the street dance and apparently, 11:30pm is to late in this town. Grommet almost talked me into slackpacking 22 miles to Hanover but the boy¢s weren¢t interested. They want to move slowly and not be in a rush. Grommet was willing to slackpack us 12 miles instead. She even offered another nights stay if we wanted but we must go! The roads await! More adventures out there tomorrow!She gives us a ton of veggies and we clown car pile into her tiny car. When she drove away it sounded as if she¢d broken her exhaust pipe off on a bump in the road. The exhaust pipe must have hit the pavement because her shocks were bottomed out. She seemed unconcerned. The first decision we needed to make was whether or not to get pie and coffee at a nearby store. Yahtzee and Stretcher went for it while Hot Foot, Tree and I debated the whole pie topic. We debated it until Stretcher returned from the store. That settled it, we¢re hiking out! Stretcher thought it¢d be a good idea to hike with an open container full of hot coffee. He¢s obviously having a good morning. I fully expect him to return to Fable Farm at any moment. I asked him if Lisa was a good dancer. He paid her quite the complement from someone who¢s danced with professionals in New York City.The trail was a blur of beautifulness and pain. Lots of sweating and the feeling that my head was going to spurt off my shoulders at any moment. My blood pressure must be insanely high right as I climb. It doesn¢t make me uncomfortable but it feels strange to give it that much effort and not be anywhere near the completion. We stop at the first shelter where I proceeded to eat everything that doesn¢t require cooking. The appetite is back! Feeding the machine is important. Apparently, Yahtzee is trying to keep the weight off that she lost by not eating. Bad idea if she¢s feeling horrible. We¢re not in PA anymore. You have to have gas to get over these mountains.Lowrod is a very fit and interesting man that we encounter when we stop for a break at the shelter. He made his own dehydrated squirrel jerky before leaving home. He reminds me of John Locke on the television show, Lost. Lowrod has very convincing eyes and demeanor.I forward progress came to a screeching halt when we stopped in a field of blackberries on top of Thistle Hill. They were everywhere along the open mountain top clearing. We kept groaning that we¢d never make it past this spot. We¢d walk 20ft and then stop. 20ft and ¢Oh, there¢s a HUGE one!¢ The cheesy song from ¢The Hills are Alive¢ kept ringing through my ears as we turned out teeth black with berries. If it weren¢t for the brambles I¢d take off running and skipping with happiness. We passed through at least 5 football sized fields of berries. We passed through a differently maintained field next that was cleared of brush. It¢s not immediately obvious that the area is maintained by a lawnmower and not grass fed animals. The amount of weed eating required to make this place look so golf course like would be a full time job. We surmised a few reasons for this groomed field. The amount of grass clippings made me believe someone is mowing the place. The hard thing is explaining why no tall grass was growing from beneath the shade trees or outcropping of a boulder. Maybe livestock and a tractor? The graded slope of the field also made it hard to imagine a tractor not flipping over.The hard plastic tubes stretched from tree to tree like clothes lines were another momentary mystery. They have pretty sophisticated elbow and t-joints holding the hollow tubes to the next tree like fence wires. The tubes aren¢t inserted into the trees we notice but we think they¢re maple sap tubes. Lots of the tubes are wrapped around Maples so we think we¢ve got it right. We joked that they were part of an alien experiment probing study. We also made dares to suck on the tubes if we saw one filled with sap!We¢d already decided to get B&J¢s at the West Hartford deli store. The real question was whether we were going back to Fable Farms for the night. I fully expected to see Stretcher going back but he doesn¢t really seem interested in the idea. Grommet told us that we could jump from the bridge in West Hartford! The mile road walk after a super hard climb made for the perfect jumping conditions for jumping into water! There was a group of 20 something¢s men who were debating whether they were jumping or not. Stretcher is definitely doing it, he tells us. Tree is in. I¢m on the fence a little. Sort of. I just want to see one fat guy not die and I¢ll do it. The man who doesn¢t it for me splashes so high he gets water on the bottom of the bridge above. Stretcher and Tree jumped as I watched. It¢s got to be at least 30 feet high! What a refreshing way to leap into cool river water I thought as I walked back up to the top. I walked up on the bridge and dropped my shoes over the edge and down to where I¢d be swimming to. One of the younger kids from the group earlier was freaking out on the edge and thinking about it way to hard. I nervously waited for him to take his sweat time jumping. I waited but I didn¢t wait anywhere near where I¢d be looking down at what I had to leap off of. When the boy finally jumped and was in the clear¢¦I leapt over the rail and jumped as soon as my feel touches the ground on the other side. My eyes were open when I hit the water and almost lost a contact. I definitely lost my bandana. While I was in the water below a really nice guy above on the bridge told me he¢d rescue my bandana. Thanks! It¢s the most important bandana in the world I think to myself in a smart ass voice. Sure enough he jumps in with a snorkel and goggles and retrieves the darn thing. I can barely stand up because of the rush that I got from jumping! What an incredible free high!!! We walked to the grocery/convince store for ice cream and to dry off. There were lots of tourists around bugging us about the trail. I guess we¢re pretty curious looking folks after this point. We definitely appear different than the average citizen.I couldn¢t resist ordering a vegetarian sandwich to eat before my cookies and cream B&J! We ate our ice cream and chatted about returning to Fable Farm. We decided in the interest of Stretchers thru-hike, that we should go to the next shelter. Tonight at least. Lowrod arrived and purchased a giant 700 calorie peanut butter whoopee, bagel sandwich and a 20oz can of energy! It¢s 6:45pm and he¢s insane. You¢ll be up all night I tell him. After getting a thorn stuck in my scalp like a fish hook, I got water from behind the rose bush guarded water spigot on the side of the store. We ate our ice cream laughing at the locals and talking about buying the $900 conversion van by the store. We joked about traveling in the van all over the country or going back to live on the farm. We settled with 3 more miles of the Appalachian Trail! One adventure at a time!The trail was more difficult than expected and strenuous but we made camp before dark. No one cooked dinner because we exhausted ourselves. Each of us had 1 liter of water and one 20oz can of Steel Reserve that we¢d packed out. After we¢d put our tents up in close proximity I noticed that it looked like a stealth bomber airport hanger. The sleak sil-nylon looks like the skin of a bomber and the triangle shape of the tents look like the wings and body. We discuss all the reasons why we¢re awesome and started calling out possible names for our band of merriment. ¢Worx¢ is my favorite. Worxxxz is the other possibility. Hot Foot likes the motto:¢Look out¢¦we stun.¢We don¢t approve initially.¢Safety first¢ is my entry but we don¢t vote on anyone topic or another. Steel Worx is another motto but we¢ve had enough of that business. I get the feeling that this might be like the last night I camped with Michigan, Kricket and Boo Boo. That old fleeting moment feeling is sinking in as the night approaches and slowly I can¢t see a darn thing!