Date: 2003-08-04
From: Secret Shelter

To: Vernon, NJ
Miles today: 14.1

It was hard to leave the beauty of the secret shelter and the good company there. I can't say that I slept well...it was hot in the loft, and we couldn't open the windows. If we did, the bugs came in. Unfortunately, the electricity had been knocked out by the storms, and the fan wasn't working for part of the night. Gerri had left it plugged in and turned on, though, and it came on sometime during the night. It was pointed partially at me, and it was blowing my hair around...I thought the bugs were back . To top it off, I was sleeping on the outside edge of the loft, so I worried about falling out. Not the ingredients for a restful night. Oh, well...I said goodbye to everyone, with lots of hugs. Bodhi asked why I was doing that. I told him it was because I'll use any excuse to get hugs...also, I never know when I'll see people again. One of the last times I said goodbye to Cruiser, I didn't see her and Reason again for two months. I regretted not waking Rea!son up to say goodbye to him that morning. I don't ever want to have that kind of regret again. Besides, can you really ever have too many hugs? Maybe that's what I'm supposed to learn out here...to never take for granted the people who we are with, who are important to us, and to let them KNOW that they are important. We left at our usual time, 10ish, to the quite timely braying of a donkey. I'd like to say that we had a great day hiking, but it was yet another rainy day on the AT. There were a few highlights...before we got rained on, we went to Unionville, NY to resupply. We got some great deli sandwiches there, and went to the hostel down the street, where Free Radical, Emily, Slack, Double A and JimboTrek had stayed. We also met Roadie, a young woman from Georgia who got on the Trail in Damascus. When we started hiking again, she and JimboTrek joined us. The others were taking naps, as they'd spent all day the previous day at the bar. We had to walk around a !swampy bird sanctuary, where we saw one great blue heron and a zillion(no, really, I counted) mosquitos. We were lucky to make it out of there with most of our blood supply still running through our veins. Gerri was a mess...she'd been bitten so many times that she had great welts all over one shoulder and her face. We decided then that we weren't going as far as we had originally planned. Most of the people we had stayed with at the Secret Shelter were going to the church hostel in Vernon. Perhaps there would be good enough for us. We could get our laundry done, anyway. We continued on, now in the rain. At least when it was raining, the bugs didn't bite...a poor exchange, one misery for another. Oh, well. We got to this section of swamp where, miraculously, there were no mosquitos, and there was about a mile of gorgeous boardwalk through it. It was definitely the highlight of the day. It featured, however, many benches. I kept my deal with myself to sit on every bench on the AT...I was running ahead of Randy and Gerri to make su!re I'd hit them all. The boardwalk ended in a fabu suspension bridge...you should have been there, Seester! We went from there to a cow pasture...what a way to end the day. Randy even managed to get a shoeful of nasty cow-pattie water at the end of the field. We started walking on the road in the direction of Vernon...Gerri had decided that she was going to get a motel room, so we could get some sleep. I was able to hitch a ride with a guy who, no kidding, had just purchased his new WHITE pickup truck 5 minutes before. Add three wet, muddy hikers plus gear to that...we felt terrible, but, hey, he picked us up. At the motel, we asked about a room, and were told there weren't any. We didn't know what to do. Gerri went in the office to try and contact another motel, with no luck. Then the guy who was running the desk said he had a reserved room that he could give us. We were extremely grateful. We took showers and ordered some pizza, hot wings, poppers and greek sa!lad. Clean and sated, they watched some TV and I went to the hostel to do laundry. I saw lots of hikers there...everyone from Unionville, Pushing Up Daisies, Flatlander, Burger, Starburst, Mountain Dancer and Viking. I also met Magic Rat, Turtle, Espy and The Buddy. I got the laundry done, and went back to the motel...ready to get some sleep.