Date: 2022-11-01
From: Wilbur Dam Road

To: Dennis Cove Road
Miles today: 13.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Today began month number 6 on the trail. We are all feeling it. I met a hiker who told me they had come out here for a mental break and instead they got a mental challenge. We have all had a good, long mental break but we are certainly in the mental challenge stage now. Ninja Squirrel is frustrated at our slow pace. Fish has slowed down dramatically without Texas Pete and I on the trail. North Star is tired physically and mentally. Texas Pete is teetering on boredom (and doing it like a champ!). I miss the trail and the rhythm of the thru hike. Van Life is going great but it¢s not the same as the woods. ¢I went to the van because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life.¢ No. ¢At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of van life.¢ No. ¢Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the van is going home; that van life is a necessity.¢  No.¢A van is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.¢ No. I welcome this challenge, though. While I envy hikers like Tin Man, who slowed his pace intentionally once he reached Vermont in order to stretch out his experience, I would feel cheated, in a way, if we arrived at Springer having never really faced the mental challenge of the trail. The funk we now face isn¢t a rejection of the trail but, instead, a desire to return to the New York spring, the Vermont Mountains, the Maine wilderness, the Pennsylvania ridges. As the days get shorter, the temperatures colder, and the miles skinnier, we daydream of home ahead and the miles behind. This seems to be the paradox that all thru hikers face: The desire to either be finished or to be just starting, but to somehow skip the last push of the trail. As we stepped into the 100 mile wilderness, Poet left us with a haiku. I¢ve written about how I felt like an intruder in that wilderness and so, at the time, I tucked this away for later. Now is later. Drink your deepest now. For the sweetest stuff settlesIn the final swig. There is wisdom here. There will be a lot of sweetness in this final stint. We awoke to a killer continental breakfast at the Hampton Inn. The boys are big fans of a continental breakfast. There may have been some baked goods and fruit in pockets when we left. We drove 40 minutes back out to Wilbur Dam Road and put the trail crew back on the trail. Then we slow-rolled through Hampton and southward to Dennis Cove Road. We had camp set up by 10:30 and brewed some coffee and hot chocolate for any SOBOs that came through. The first of the day came through at 12:00. Stoneage had stayed at Boots Off Hostel last night for Halloween. He had 2 cups of hot chocolate and packed out a Mountain Dew. Shortly behind him was Soups, then, after he left, Last Minute. Roots arrived at 2:30, just before the trail crew showed up. He hiked on while we stayed. The two turtles joined us for dinner while they debated whether or not to go to Bob People¢s Kinkorra hostel just up the road. The reviews on Far Out made the prospect of staying there seem like a gamble. I invited them to ride with me to his hostel so I could fill up our 4 gallon jugs with water. We met Bob - a character from a trail era gone by - and got our water filled. In the end, they were glad to camp with us at Dennis Cove. Ninja Squirrel started a fire, I cooked Hamburger Helper for dinner. We laid down as the sun set and are drifting off to sleep to the sound of the creek.