Date: 2013-07-22
From: The Peak of Mt Race (elev 2370ft), MA

To: Janet & Lee by Bridge on Kellogg Rd, Sheffield
Miles today: 12.0
Weather: light rain

Over the river and through the woods. Woweee! Made it to Grandma and Grandpa Weisbord's vacation home! It's late and I have been trying to fall asleep. I can't! Is it the bed...no rocks under my body? Could it be the lack of heat or perhaps no Mosquitoes chomping on me? Maybe I need to rustle of the trees and unidentified animal sounds creeping about the tent. How can I sleep without a kids elbow in my side? Maybe I'm just too clean. It was so grand to see the grandparents after 2 months. Grandma cooked us a real dinner. We laughed at having plates, silverware and napkins. Sitting in a chair was novel. No dirt in our food! They will be slack packing us for a few days! The girls are beyond thrilled!A NOBO told us the difference between a day hiker, a section hiker and a thru hiker (Cub loves this and eagerly repeated it to her grandparents). A day hiker finds an M&M on he trail and says,"Ooh, gross" and goes on. A section hiker finds an M&M and picks it up, looks at it and throws it down. A thru hiker sees an M&M, picks it up, eats it and looks around for more. It's true. We are totally degraded and base creatures now. I, in fact, did eat an actual M&M I found. Cub eagerly ate a Jolly Rancher that she happily found. Badonkadonk seems to accidentally ingest the most bugs in our group. So this am we woke up on a mt top to a sunrise. The clouds were totally surrounding out tent at 5:30 but by 6 they had moved BELOW us. Planes flew below us! We feasted on fresh blueberries, descended Race Mt and did a 2 mile ascent of Mt Everett and then down again. When we look out at the terrain below us we look for the highest mt and know we will have to climb up and down it. At the top of Mt Everett we found a rather large brown bunny. It stared at us then slowly hopped into the brush. Out of water after our descent, sweating profusely, we were thrilled to find two huge water coolers with ice !! And about 20 gallon jugs of additional water. A woman named Dottie and her neighbor drive the water up everyday. Thank you trail angels!We hiked the mts but also corn fields, sheep filled fields and wild fields filled with flowers of every color. We passed quintessential farms with perfectly colored red barns and shiny-topped silos. We passed rolls of hay and smelled horses and cattle for a large part of the day. We also walked a lot of boards laid down over muck and swampy areas that appeared to be mosquito breeding grounds. We were suspicious that AT hikers are the communities sacrificial offerings. The skeeters are bursting with our high caloric, power drink-ridden blood. Cub gets so angry with G-d every time, saying "why did G-d even bother creating such a mean, awful, useless, annoying insect? I would ask G-d that first thing". Our new strategy is to not wear any insect repellent. It sweats off in seconds, burns our skin, numbs our lips and melts our plastics(so how good can it be for us?). We just let them bite then put anti-itch cream on. Remember the old OFF commercials where the guys sticks his arm in a box full of Mosquitoes? That's what we look like all day. We met aHiker called Beeman (he's just awesome). He is a real beekeeper. When he harvested honey at a big commercial place years ago he got 30 to 40 stings a day they girls and I are trying to hold onto that thought. Bee stings are much worse than Mosquitoes. The girls know as they've both been stung on the trail. Okay. I need to sleep so I can make Blueberry, the mileage slave driver, happy with our numbers! Here's hoping I can adjust to all this luxury!