Date: 2018-07-24
From: High Point State Park

To: Unionville Park 
Miles today: 8.8

It was still raining out when I woke up. Rosie and Lupine had stayed up until 2:30 am watching Portlandia. There was a lull in the rain and I quickly packed up. I ate some poptarts for breakfast then it started raining again. It was a sad breakfast. The rain didn't let up in the morning. We were only going to Unionville, NJ to meet up with Lupine's friend John.  The trail was still rocky in this part of the state. After we crossed a certain area, the land got flatter and the rocks disappeared. It reminded me what the trail used to look like. I was happy to not have rocks. Rosie and I came to a wooden structure with a viewpoint. We climbed up it and was instantly greeted with a 220 foot obelisk on the next mountain. It was the highest point in New Jersey. We then hiked to one area that was a large swamp. There were boardwalks to let us cross except they were really slippery. I imagined falling into the swamp and how I would deal with it. Spot told me there were sections in Maine were the boardwalks were under a foot of water. If you fell off you would probably be up to your shoulders in water. The trail smoothed out and we were arrived at the access road to Unionville.  Lupine's friend John came by and picked us up in his car. I decided to only do 9 miles today since having someone with a car means I can get a lot of errands done quickly. The first order of business was to the post office to pickup our package drops. Rosie and I both got our sandels!  We had been talking about hiking in them for days. The rocks had ended and it was safe again to hike in sandals.  We then went to a local deli where I got a rubeini which was a ruben panini. It was so good.  New Jersey is filled with delis. I didn't realize there was such a deli culture here. As we were eating, the deli owner gave us some prepackaged apple pies that had expired. We knew from the amount of preservatives in them they were still good. After eating we went to the laundry mat and washed our dirty clothes after many days of rain. Our clothes still smelled after washing them but at least they were still clean. We also laid out all our stuff to dry in the parking lot. It looked like a hiker trash garage sale. Both Rosie and I were in our rain suits while doing laundry. The locals in the town got a free show. One woman mentioned that she saw Rosie's goods. I laughed really hard at that. With our clothes dry we went to the grocery for our resupply. I ended up buying way to much food but I needed the calories anyways.  We drove back to Unionville were you could camp in the local park next to the basketball courts. Apparently you needed a permit to camp from the local general store but it was closed by the time we got there. At the camp a man named Butch said he really didn't care about us not having permits and we setup camp. We bought curries and rice for dinner and cooked on the basketball court. We all shared our different curries with each other. The sky had cleared up for a little break from the rain. I laid back on the asphalt and watched the clouds roll by. Past the clouds I could see the stars. After dinner I crashed in my tent.Tonight my tummy is happy with curry.