Date: 2008-07-24
From: Greenwall Shelter

To: Back Home Again Hostel
Miles today: 7.0

Rain FugitiveGreenwall Shelter to Back Home Again Hostel: 8 Miles I guess I¢ll get out of here sometime. I¢m sitting here waiting for the rain to ease, and it has, several times. I¢ve been updating my journal for the last four days. I¢ll post them I think and then get going. It¢s already 1210. I didn¢t feel like getting water this morning. I ate a little bit and killed a few hundred mosquitoes. They are slower here in Vermont than they were in Massachusetts. I thank God for that. Maybe it¢s all the moisture in the air? Later I got out of there around 1230 and walked over mud and slides and twisted, gnarled roots that provided conundrical stepping situations as I went down toward Vermont Route 103. The hike up and over Bear Mountain was difficult. There seems to be a Bear Mountain in every state and I have to go over it. Every Bear Mountain is also a tough climb either up or down. Maybe there¢s something to this. I¢ll investigate it later. At some point I was investigating the map and I realized that at Rt 103 I could just hitch a ride in to Rutland and it would actually be closer than it would if I passed over Killington where the book suggests you hitch in from Route 4. Rt 103 is a smaller highway but it¢s still significant and has lots of traffic so I decided I would stop there and go in to the town of Rutland. I¢ve been hearing about this hostel called ¢Back Home Again.¢ It¢s run by a religious group called The Twelve Tribes. I¢d been hearing all about these guys from people on the trail. They offer work-for-stay which is great ¢cause I¢m almost completely out of money and I have plenty of energy to work with. I can work all day long I just can¢t make any money while I¢m out here. They feed you too; so it seems like all of my issues would be solved, including the ¢wet socks¢ and ¢soggy, muddy life¢ issues. I heard there is a guy who will slack pack you too. Slack packing is when you hike a section of the trail with the bare essentials in your pack for the day; basically, water, camera and lunch. Sometimes a person will drive you out to a trailhead about 20 or 30 miles from the hostel and you hike much faster and more miles back in to the place you are going to stay. There are many ways to do this but basically it allows you the benefits of staying in town without losing miles for the day. My brothers and I slackpacked one three mile section back in Franklin but I¢ve resisted the temptation to slackpack so far on this trip. I hear temptation calling¢¦I got down to the road and the effects of the rain were evident as I crossed the last bridge over the Mill River. It was incredibly loud as the bloated river rushed throught he rock channels. It looked like the Colorado River. The narrow rock chutes took a 90 degree turn and sloshed back and forth in what looked to me to be class-four or five rapids. I wanted to take some pictures but my camera was packed up tight to keep it safe from the rain so I thought about it and kept moving; Town was beckoning. After I got on the road and changed into Hitchiking Clothes, I got a ride pretty quick from a guy who took me all the way into where I needed to go. I¢m really glad he did because where they said the town was only 4 miles away was just the very outskirts and it would have been another four miles or so to get downtown to the Back Home Again Caf©. I called and made sure I could get a bed and the response I got was ¢we¢ll make room¢ so I anticipated it to be pretty full but there were like 25 people there; many of whom I knew like Croc Hunter and Leonides Shadow Cast; but there were also a bunch of SOBOs and non-hikers. They set me up with a great bed by the window to the main street and I would fall asleep later that night to the comforting sounds of Blues emanating from one of the local pubs across the street. Ranan greeted me as I came into the caf© and showed me to my bed and around the caf©. They have dinner for everyone at 8:30PM and then we all clean up and do various chores afterwards. Rutland is a pretty cool town that once boasted the most bars per capita in the US. The WAL-MART and the Grocery Store were only a block away so re-supply would be easy. I went and hung out in the WAL-MART among the brightly colored boxed to re-acclimate myself to society. I like doing that when I get into a town. Just like I need to be silent and listen to the forest when I get back into it. I also need to get amongst commerce and air-conditioning for a while before I can ¢Be¢ in society again. It¢s kind of weird but it¢s definitely something I¢ve noticed since I¢ve been on this trip. The caf© has its own bakery and when I got upstairs I found the Preacher boys wrapping up muffins, huge ginger snaps and Mat© energy bars. I had heard about these energy bars from Greta in the Green Mountain House. My work-for-stay involved moving a bunch of stuff and I was really starting to feel this hernia thing in my groin. When I lifted a box and the edge of it was against my pelvis I could feel it popping and one of the other hikers is a doctor and he cursorily diagnosed it as a hernia. I guess I better figure out where a VA hospital is. I looked up the treatment for hernia on the Internet and it looks like I¢m going to need surgery. There is a chance that they can just pop it back in and I can keep going but I¢m not counting on it. I¢m afraid after coming all this way, I may have to get off the trail. I was really ready for the White Mountains too. I¢m about to enter the most difficult section of the Appalachian Trail and I¢ve been psyching myself up for it. I would hate to have to get off now. We had a delicious dinner and we had a long discussion with Ranan and Yohanan about their community which is basically like Messianic Jews but they live in a neat community which is linked to many other communities just like it all over the world. They make some awesome liquid soaps and amazing Yerba Mat© drinks and baked goods. The caf© is awesome; made from an old barn that they disassembled and cannibalized for their d©cor and furniture. They have an amazing fellowship and connection with each other and their God. It¢s very neat to see how the community operates and thrives with every family member playing a role.David AKA ¢Mister Gentle Spirit¢ Website http://www.wbafinc.org Photos: http://www.photobucket.com/brotherproofVideos: http://www.youtube.com/WBAF1