Date: 2007-09-15
From: Connecticut

To: New York
Miles today: 0.0

Another day, another state! Even better, I'm only 10 miles shy of the 700 mile mark, which is pretty exciting.Tom dropped us off where he had picked us up from getting rained out, and we pulled off a 20 mile day; it was rather exhausting. There were a few highlights, however, namely someone in the group doing naked cartwheels across the pedestrian bridge over the Mass. Turnpike. It was hard to believe that it was happening when it was, and just as hard to believe that it had happened, after the fact. There was also some mooning that elicited some honks from trucks driving by; I did retain my fully clothed status throughout the whole episode. I'm not sure if many of the people who saw what happened really counted on someone doing naked cartwheels across the bridge when they paid their tolls. Because we were trying to pull off 20+ while starting at 10, there wasn't much other time to stop and smell the roses. Barbarossa pushed on to do 25 or so, but I stopped at 21.5 at a little unofficial campsite right next to a stream. Uly and Woodward showed up, sat around contemplating whether or not to stay, and finally decided to crash after they'd burned up the last little bit of daylight to put their tents up in. Squigglywhampus and Tartar Sauce showed up after dark, having lost the trail after a wrong turn (they ended up getting free water, powerade and beer off of a farmer who redirected them back to the trail), and also set up camp. I started a little fire, and we all sat around and drank boxed wine and listened to Woodward strum on his guitar. It was great listening to the water and guitar, sitting around the fire. I was able to dry out my camera after it got soaking wet while walking in the rain the day before, which was very relieving. I was pretty distressed when I pulled it out of the bag in the morning and it was soaked, and the screen fuzzy when I turned it on...needless to say, I decided that it would be best to keep my camera inside one of my clothing dry bags inside the pack when it rains next time! The 13th was another of the really interesting trail days. Woke up to a tent full of condensation (no fun), but I was able to dry it out pretty well before taking off (writing this reminds me that I need to finish drying it out all the way!). Great Barrington, Mass was the destination for the day, and at 17.6 miles, it wasn't that tough. There were a few mountains that we had to go over, though, which wasn't all that exciting. There aren't too many good views up here, which makes the day go by somewhat slowly. We got to the road into town and walked a few yards down the road to a farm stand that allows hikers to tent on their property. I had called ahead to make sure that it was free, so the lady had set out bottled water for us, since the ground water is apparently pretty polluted. Squigglywhampus got there just as she was closing, and she gave him a bunch of fruit that was bruised and stuff, so we all sat around and ate that and drank the clean water. None of us was rather keen on setting up tents and sleeping on concrete (the place was a wreck), but we found a bunch of plant tables inside of a greenhouse, where we decided to set up camp. It was remarkably warmer inside the greenhouse, and we were up off of the floor, so it was really nice. They have a bathroom that was open, with hot water, which was great, and there was electricity in the greenhouse, too. We caught a ride into town with this girl whose phone number we had gotten from a NOBO, and it was quite the interesting experience. She has been living out of her jeep for the past few weeks, and from the smell of it, she has been using the trunk as her trash can...it was phenomenally rank. I've come across some crazy stuff in wrecked cars with the rescue squad, but nothing could ever match this jeep. She took us to the town, and recommended a pizza place, but said she had to stop by the package store (liquor store) before dinner. She bought some small bottle of something, and started to swig when she got back in the car. The dude parked next to us gave her an emphatic thumbs up, which made her act really excited; I think she was too stupid to know that it was not an approving thumbs up...it was kind of the like thumbs up that I give people while driving, it's just one finger away from what it really means ("way to go, champ") She took us to the pizza place, where her ex-boyfriend kept calling her, which was interesting to listen to. The conversations were always punctual, involved lots of profanity, and certainly didn't end in any cordial goodbyes. She was also in the middle of trying to get some weed off of a friend of hers, which made for another interesting conversation. Incredibly tired, and not really interested in dying in an alcohol-related motor vehicle accident in a trash-strewn jeep belonging to and driven by a low-level weed hustler, I requested to be taken back to the greenhouse. Woodward joined me, and we had a really good conversation about religion and politics before falling asleep. The other guys decided to go back into town with Sarah (trashy jeep girl) to go to a bar.Woke up in the morning to hear some really good stories, and marvel at the pictures of Sarah's dive of a rental room (not sure where she got the living from the jeep story). We waited around until the greenhouse lady showed up, and bought ice cream for breakfast. I ate 1400 calories of peppermint stick ice cream, which was really good. Between that and the breakfast bars I ate, I had ingested 2150 calories before I even started walking. We walked to the other side of the valley, and climbed a rather steep 3/4 of a mile to the top of Jug End, which looked out over town and the surrounding Berkshires. The view was pretty good, but it was cloudy and dreary, unfortunately. The trail then took us up and over Mount Everett and Race Mountain, both of which had decent, but unspectacular views. On the way down Race Mountain, we got to walk along Laurel Ridge, which was really cool. It was a cliff to the left (the trail goes right along the edge of the cliff), and you could see tons of stuff down below. After that, we dropped down into Sages Ravine, where we crossed into Connecticut. The stream in the ravine was incredibly picturesque. The book said that the trees in the ravine have never been cut, but I found it hard to distinguish it from many of the other trees that we have walked through so far. A quick climb brought us up to Bear Mountain, which is the highest peak in Connecticut, and a quick decent put us out at the shelter. There were lots of bear tales in the registry book, so when everyone else arrived, about an hour after I did, we threw everything that smelled like food into the bear box to be safe. Everyone was pretty tired, but I got in a decent amount of reading time. I talked to Uly about the free range chicken farm that we had passed going into Great Barrington, and he suggested reading a book about some dude that raises free range stuff. I think it would be kind of fun to be a farmer and raise free range chickens, but it's a tough existence with little time to travel (big draw back), plus, it's hard to make a decent living selling eggs and chickens. I think that if you could figure out a way to deliver fresh chicken every day to major restaurant markets (DC, Richmond, VA Beach) from one spot, you could pull it off. Maybe some day I'll turn Caroline County into a giant free range chicken farm.It rained all night last night, which was no fun, and it was really cold when we woke up. I split my last 4 oatmeals with Uly, on the condition that he cook everything, which was cool. I was officially out of food, then, and he had to get into town to get his mail drop before the PO closed at noon, so we headed into town (about 5 miles). I'm now sitting inside the Salisbury, CT library, after we stuffed our faces at a local bakery. Had a bunch of tea, a blueberry scone, a blueberry muffin smeared with butter and a breakfast burrito...I'm still hungry, though. Woodward also arrived in town, and said that when he left the shelter, Tartar Sauce and Squigglywhampus were still in their sleeping bags. We're not quite sure where Barbarossa is, though he is close. He had pulled ahead to play ultimate somewhere in CT, but it fell through, so he's apparently going slow so that we will catch him, but we can't quite figure out where he's at. I just looked at the companion, and I have 90 miles to do in 5 days, so I'm going to have to really start moving to keep the schedule that I want, but it shouldn't be too bad. Tomorrow will probably be the last day I spend with the group I'm with until after I get back on the trail from my time off, but I should catch them pretty quickly after that, I believe. I've found an outfitter near the trail in Peekskill, NY that is going to let me throw my pack in their storage room so that I don't have to lug it into the city and leave it to smell up an unfortunate friend's apartment.