Date: 2011-07-02
From: Greenwood Lake, NY/Garrison House

To: Lake Tiorati/Garrison House
Miles today: 17.6

we had organized to stay at the Garrison House for the next night as well, since i managed to score such a sweet deal on the rooms. we left most of our gear at the b&b and took off in the car. Today we decided to drop off Tom and the kids first, that way they would have the car and the earlier start. as soon as we dropped them off we swung into target to get a car charger for Flowers since he was now our proffesional navigator by way of his smart phone. we filled up on gas and parked the car on the southern end of our section for the day. we didn't get started until 9:30 am and our opposite party had about an hour and a half head start, so we had some time to make up. we immediately passed Stretch at a rapid pace. the day quickly turned into a hot and sunny beast. this would take its toll on us today. we crossed a small bridge over a creek where i was dive bombed by a wasp on my right calf muscle. there must have been a nest under the bridge that we disturbed. the immediate pain caused me great fear because i have a severe allergy to wasp stings. i dropped my pack and grabbed my first aid kit where i keep benadryl, cortizone cream and an epi-pen just in case. i slapped on some of the cortizone cream and was going to pop a few benadryl when i thought of letting this be a little experiment. the last time i was stung, was in Scotland at the age of 14. my hand looked like the nutty proffesor. i was curious to see what sort of reaction i would get from this. if i were to plan a sting for testing purposes i would choose to be stung in the calf muscle. i opted to take a photo of the site and keep a timer to see what would happen. i'm rather glad that i chose to conduct his little experiment because the swelling never got severe. it did swell, and it was obvious that i still had an allergic reaction. the swelling was substantially less than the last time i was stung though. Stretch caught up with us during my period of volnerability with the wasp sting and hiked with us for a short period until he couldn't keep up. the terrain got steeper and more difficult as the day went on. there was lots of hand over hand climbing which made for an exciting change, however this was tiring over time. this was yet another section with limited good water, so it was very welcome to find a few gallon jugs left as trail magic by a local hiking group. since we started later than Tom and the Runaways we crossed pathes under halfway for us so we had to make up the ground in a hurry. we came across a sweet little lake towads the end of the day that i pursuaded the lads to jump in. the temperature was comparable to bath water, however the color was more comparable to DR. Pepper. after my little swim i discovered a small stowaway adhereed to my right foot. this was a preferable parasite to the ticks that have dropped a numbers of hikers this year already. i pulled a small leech off of my skin with much difficulty. the next upcoming section had a narrow passage between boulders referred to as the lemon squeezer. immediately following this was the first true vertical climb we have been presented. this was the first time that i had to toss both trekking poles to maintain three points of contact on the rock face. Glide and i both managed without much difficulty whereas Flowers just ran up without pausing.. Flowers is a bit of a ninja when it comes to scaling rock and enjoyed making the both of us look like children. the intersection for the long trail intersected the A.T. later on. the long trail is a shorter long distance trail that ends in Manhatten. the last few miles had some lame ups and downs which we decided to make quick work of since we received a message from Goldylocks saying that they had reached their end point. Glide took a nasty spill on one of the descents and banged his knee up rather nicely. nothing too serious though. whem we got into the car we drove around looking for a grocery to pick up a few things to cook for dinner since we had access to a full kitchen. unfortuneately the little town of Ft. Montgomery and West Point do not have such establishments. a bit weird, okay... we opted to have dinner at the same place again. this was quite nice. after the meal we grabbed a few snack items in a little corner shop for tomorrow's hike, as well as a few beers for consumption at he haunted mannor. Glide had made arrangements to be picked up by a friend tomorrow instead of hiking. he was taking a couple of days off to see his wife etc. when we were sitting around the living room the lights gave a little flicker which i made i big deal out of to get a rise out of everyone. unfortuneately no one seemed too bothered by my suggestions of paranormal tom foolery. another good night amoungst friends.