Date: 2017-04-27
From: USMA, West Point

To: South Highland Road
Miles today: 12.7
Weather: overcast clouds

This morning was to conclude a very nice stay at the Beat Navy House on West Point. After packing I took advantage of the opportunity to have one more good breakfast meal before getting on the road, and Teresa and I finalized our plans for her to hike with me some today and meet me after I hiked today's miles. She will lighten my load a bit by carrying about 4 lbs of food for the coming days. While eating breakfast, we had a chance to meet some members of the West Point Class of 1957, interesting and energetic people. Then we loaded the car and Teresa drove us to the Bear Mountain Inn where we hiked together for a few miles. Simply due to non-availability of other options for parking I had some overlap re-hiking the section that goes through the Bear Mountain Zoo and part of its park area up to the actual Bear Mountain Bridge. Teresa and I hiked across the bridge and she had an opportunity to take several photos that I hope she will upload later today. When I met Silver Girl at the Brien shelter a couple days ago, I had asked her what food secrets she had picked up after hiking for three months from Georgia. She showed me a bunch of stuff including a product called Mio. So yesterday when Teresa and I shopped at the commissary at West Point, I picked up two types of Mio. I can't help but notice that it colored my water, and they now appear to me to be like the potions in the video game I used to play with Joey and Jenna called Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. :-) Curiously, it is in fact true that the red potion, because it has caffeine and vitamins is energizing! And the green potion, because it has electrolytes and B vitamins... well, it provides Magic.! Haha. I actually have no idea what these Mio drops will do, and I doubt I am going to want to continue to have full liters of artificially colored water.Today's plan was for Teresa to hike with me for a couple miles in the morning and then we'd meet up at a road crossing at approximately my 10 Mile point. This would allow my first day back on the trail to be in a relatively conservative fashion for a couple of reasons. For starters, it would allow my feet more recovery from the beating I gave them in the last 20 miles coming out of Pennsylvania followed by the 24 mile day in New Jersey a little less than a week ago. Also, it will give me a chance to break in my new boots. So I planned less miles than usual and Teresa would deliver 3 days worth of food when we meet up. We got started at the Bear Mountain Bridge at about 10:30 am. Around 12:30 I stopped for a short break to eat a Snickers bar drink some of my potions (haha) and make an initial entry in today's Trail Journal. I noticed that at this time I had gone 5 miles despite the fact that I had had an aggregate of about 1000 feet of elevation and maybe three hundred feet of loss. That put me in about an hour ahead of the conservative schedule that I had initially thought I would maintain during today's hike. Other than the initial climb after the Bear Mountain Bridge, the trail had been relatively easy this morning. I think this speed was in part due to simply being fully rested and refueled so to speak after having yesterday off. Perhaps the caffeine in both the morning coffee and my water had something to do with it!I came to South Highland Road where Teresa was parked with the car at about 4:30 this afternoon. I was soaked in sweat and as the bugs were swarming around us as we were trying to talk I had an epiphany. Teresa was going to go back to the DVQ at West Point and spend another night before driving back to Maryland and I was going to camp near the bugs. Something is not right with this picture! Although I opened this journal saying I was concluding my stay at the DVQ at West Point, we both headed back there again, and in the morning Teresa will bring me back out again to South Highland Road where I will proceed onward from where I ended today. Goodnight!