Date: 2013-07-26
From: The Yellow Deli, US 4

To: The Yellow Deli, VT 103
Miles today: 17.4

DAY 47MILES ON AT FOR DAY- 17.4MILES TOTAL FOR DAY- 17.4"It's not about the miles... it's about the smiles!" - Stinky JesusI slept like a rock! I had slept terrible the night before thinking about Amy and then woke up very early to do my work for stay. Last night I slept much much better. We had a nice breakfast again and then got ready to do our slack pack over Killington. It was going to be me, Nightwalker, Nectar, Smithy, Stinky Jesus, and his new pup. We took the $2 bus to the trail head and Stinky got a ride with his dog from Natan (the head of the hostel basically). When we arrived we waited for Stinky Jesus. When they showed up and got out of the car all of a sudden Natan's car lit on fire. Literally. Smoke poured out of the hood and when we opened it there was a fire! I just grabbed the dog and stepped back while they tried to at least dowse the fire on the interior of the hood. No one got hurt so all was well. Wish I could say the same for Natan's car. Guess it was on it's way out anyways!Once Natan was set up to get a tow we set off. The climb up Killington wasn't too bad. I thought it was fun climbing up a mountain that I love to snowboard down haha. There was a side trail to the top but unfortunately it was very overcast so there wouldn't have been a view anyways. We skipped that and headed onward to now go down the mountain. On our way down we met two NoBo's, Puddle and Pippin. We told them about how amazing the Yellow Deli was and to try to push to get there tonight because it was worth it... and free tonight since it was the Sabbath! At the bottom we hit a section that had been hit by hurricane Katrina and was rerouted. Although the bridge was washed out it was passable so we didn't take the reroute. We didn't want to miss the 500 mile mark! Soon after we started down the original route we hit it! A teeny tiny plaque, but non the less we were at the 500 mile mark! Almost a quarter of the way! Woohoo! We had packed out little wine boxes so we celebrated with those and hung out for a while at the 500 mark. We didn't have much further to go anyways. We ended up hitching a ride from this guy Toby in a small sports car and somehow managed to cram myself, Smithy, Nectar, Stinky, and his dog into it. I still don't really understand how to this day. We swung by a bar to grab our trail angel a beer for giving us a ride back to Rutland and then walked the short distance back. The exciting part of getting back was that tonight was Friday and it was the Sabbath for the 12 Tribes so they invited us to their dinner and celebration and also invited us to stay another night at the hostel... for free! Of course we accepted.With everyone from the community there the dinner was huge! There were probably 50 people! It was delicious too. Natan made an announcement to the whole community thanking us for helping him with the car being on fire earlier which was sweet. Really we owed him the thanks for inviting us to celebrate with them. It was such a cool experience! After dinner we gathered in a circle and danced and sang! Although it was religious it didn't feel that way. You just felt warm and welcomed. As the night wound down we headed back to the hostel area. Globe and Puddle showed up in the middle of the celebration. Two NoBo's had also showed up that night who we hadn't met. Their names were Grey Cloud and Wolf Man. I hadn't originally been planning on it, but some of the hikers were headed to the bar so I followed along. It ended up being Grey Cloud, Wolf Man, Nectar, Globe, Stinky Jesus, Smithy, and me. We had a few beers, played games at the bar, and hung out. Coolest NoBo's I had met so far for sure. We ended up staying later than planned but whatever! It wasn't often we got a group together to actually just hang out like people do and not hike or eat or sleep! After a great milestone of a day and a fun night to celebrate, it was lights out. 1am. Now THAT was the latest I had stayed up on the trail!