Date: 2011-07-09
From: Schaghticoke Road

To: Housatonic River Rd
Miles today: 26.4

we woke up and got organized slightly later than yesterday. the day started off with a soaking wet field walk. it wasn't raining, but the morning dew created a horrific rainforest of high grass and wild plants. we were soaked through. this was also the first time that i realized the waterproofing on my second pair of boots was no longer functional. the problem with good water resistant boots is that when they loose the repellant they tend to hold water substantially longer than lightweight trail runners and such. i received most of the morning moisture in the group since i was leading. we had a steep climb to attend to just after the field. i took off on a run. i'm not sure why, but i decided to approach the day with a mad dash. the others would surely catch up later. the terrain had numerous ups and downs in short sections. the entire state of CT reminded me of the notorious "roller coaster". i banged out these miles with little effort, at a rapid pace. had it been wet and rainy it would be a different story, these hills had soem sections of slab rock that would be deadly when wet. lucky for us it wasn't. there was an immesely steep descent to contend with that i tackled abit too enthusiastically. i managed to miss step on a sharp, angular boulder and slip onto my left side. not a bad fall, but very nearly a fall of death. i missed going off a spectacularly high drop sideways by about two inches. onward, since i didn't die. this is now three spills i've taken in case you're keeping score. by spills, i mean any body part above the knee coming contact with the ground unintentionally. the next bit of trail had a very easy and pleasant river walk for a flat four miles. ace. i stopped for a breather at the river shelter and decided to wait on my comrades to make sure all faired well through the technical section. G-locks managed to bite it somewhere near where i had. not a surprise. young G-town gives us daily frights with her gravity storms. it took them a solid 20 minutes to catch up to me. i must have been booking it. either that or they were faffing about. i wish i had paid better attention to my timeframe to determine speed. we had a few more of the short and steep up and downs to deal with in the afternoon. i stuck with the posse for the rest of the day. we stopped for lunch at a road gap after the first 16 miles. Tera picked us up and brought us to a nice little hotdog/burger stand in Cornwall, CT. Flowers had recently purchased a pair of running shorts which he had managed to tear on some daisys or something. so it was proposed that we find the outfitter that could replace them and get back to the trail later. we drove for a bit and found the shop right next door to an epic ice cream joint, so this was a win for all involved. Flowers got his new shorts and we swung by wal-wart to get Flowers and Tera a new drink cooler. by the time we got back to the trail it was after 4:30pm. even with such a late start on the afternoon,we slapped another 10 big ones down. however we should have filled up on water before heading back out which was rather foolish, but no one thought of it. this caused us to fill up much closer to a beaver dam than i would have liked. beaver poo tastes like poo... also causes giardia. towards the end of the day we were crossing a road when a random car slowed down and stopped next to Flowers and i. the couple in the car asked if we were thru-hiking which we confirmed, then they asked if we would like some cheese... the lady proceeded to dig in the backseat and hand me a two pound bag of xxx hardcore sharp white cheddar out of the window. before i really had time to react properly the car had sped off to avoid holding up traffic and i was holding a massive bag of donated cheese. wtf? i was, of course, the test patient for the cheese. it tasted like nice sharp cheese, so i suppose i'll eat more... we had a few bites and chucked the rest in my pack to put in the cooler later. we tromped the last bit quite easily considering we had a nice long break over lunch and the hottest part of the day. we got back rather late, and didn't really feel like cooking. tera was nice enough to run us to the gas station where we just stocked up on junk food for dinner.