Date: 2007-09-09
From: Dalton, Mass

To: Connecticut
Miles today: 0.0

So many milestones! Since last writing, I have crossed the 600 mile mark (now at 620), gone for 180 miles without a shower, entered my 4th state, and continued to have the time of my life.At the last post, I was in the rather interesting town of Manchester Center, Vermont. It was a decent place, but the whole place was factory outlet stores...it was kind of like Prime Outlets took over the whole town. We were able to leave our packs at the EMS store, which was nice, because it was a pretty spread out place. I hit up the grocery store, ate a pint of Hagen Daz, purchased some new socks (I love Smartwool socks like no other), purchased a proper food bag that does not weigh nearly as much as the last one did, washed my nasty, nasty clothes, and ate plenty of food. We saw Jared (SOBO) in town, and his grandma gave us a ride back to the trailhead in her Mercedes...classy. We went to the second shelter out of town, and crashed. I made really good time coming out of town with Uly. Red Beard was also at the shelter, and because of his ability to snore so loudly that no one can sleep, I set up my tent a decent distance away from the shelter and slept like a baby; it was wonderful. I cooked up some "deluxe" mac & cheese and it actually tasted pretty good...I am approaching the point of being able to eat almost anything that's put in front of me.I left the shelter pretty early in the morning, but didn't really feel like walking very fast. I took my sweet time just lazing along the trail; at the end of the day, I thought back to what I had done, and I had walked 19.9 miles, still finished before 6pm, and had sat on my tail for about 2 hours and 45 minutes in the process--not bad. It did seem like a rather long period doing the last 4 miles into the shelter, and it was very nice to hear Woodward's guitar from the trail...I knew that I was close, and when I arrived, I told him that it was the best thing that I had heard all day, he seemed pleased, and played some Mozart for everyone. There was a nasty old couple from Connecticut there, and I'm pretty sure that we did an absolutely splendid job of making her have bad thoughts about us. Uly discovered some gossip magazine in the shelter, and we all sat down at the picnic table critiquing the celebrities and their trashy ways in less than civil conversation, by pretty much anyone's standards. Since there were overweight, old men at the shelter, I knew that someone was bound to be sawing logs all night long, so I set up my tent a bit down below the shelter in an effort to escape the madness. The shelter, Kid Gore, was impecably placed...it opened up to the East, looking down a cleared ravine towards the sunrise. As we were sitting around talking trash about Britney Spears and her ilk, three dudes showed up with Samurai swords strapped to their already overloaded packs. This was good for quite a few laughs and comments after they were out of earshot and sword-throwing range. The next day brought us past Bennington, Vermont, where I chose not to stop. We only had 14 miles to do, and since I was not going into town, I spent quite a bit of time just sitting around at various points along the trail. We went over the top of Glastenburry mountain, where the fire tower offered a view that was practically indistinguishable from the fire tower view on top of Stratton. I did, however, really enjoy sitting at the Goddard Shelter for an excess of two hours reading an article on China and another on the producer of Borat. I ate lots of trail mix and amused myself by stomping my feet on the porch when a rather brazen chipmunk approached me. Chipmunks must be pretty stupid, because he would run away like a lion had just roared at him, but would return again in a few seconds for me to stomp my foot again and for him to run away. The climb out of the notch road to Bennington was rather interesting...reminded me a lot of Maine; lots of steps, lots of rock, and lots sweat. However, it was still enjoyable; it took all of us SOBOs back to our roots! I arrived at the shelter to find a group of 10 kids from Princeton, staying there for the last night of their orientation. I quickly went to work gathering firewood in preparation for a roaring blaze. I spun some stories of the trail for them--it was kind of weird to be sitting on the front step of the shelter and having 10 people just sitting there staring at me and listening to me talk without making a peep, so I quickly stopped because it felt weird. Barbarossa, Uly and Woodward quickly showed up, and I handed over the entertaining duties to Barbarossa, who, like myself, was thoroughly gone after embibing the fire water we had been packing for the last few days. I discovered that Lipton instant green tea makes an excellent vodka tea, and taken in quantities measured by Nalgene bottles, it's rather potent!We left the budding Ivy Leaguers in the morning, and braving the oppressive heat and humidity (the last week has been absolutely miserable), made it to Massachusetts! It felt great, psychologically, to be in a new state, but physically I felt like crap because of the humidity...it was not nice hiking weather by any means. I headed down the hill to Williamstown, Mass, where I got a ride into town with a guy from Vermont (figures, they're nice people in Vermont), who dropped me off in front of the post office. I was delighted to learn that my loaner pack had arrived from Gregory (they spent $33 to mail it there, and even included the return postage), so I switched over everything there in the post office lobby. Williamstown is home to Williams College, which, by the looks of the students, is rather hoity-toity, so it was rather pleasing to have my stuff strewn about the floor as kids spending $40,000 a year to go to school tip-toed around trying to mail their postcards home to say they hadn't gotten kicked out of school before orientation was even over. A guy, Chris, and his daughter, Abby, picked me up in their Jeep as I was walking back towards the trail head, and I didn't even have my thumb up. I had tried hitching, but the street was residential, with no where to pull over, so I was just walking a bit to somewhere that would be easier when he pulled over. He just stopped in the middle of the road, jumped out, threw the stuff off of the back seat and I hopped in--it was great! It was a few miles, so we talked briefly about my trip, and then he said "you aren't one of those purist people, are you?" I said "no," to see what would happen, and he offered to drive me to the end of the roadwalk out of town. Given the humidity, heat, and a totally stuffed stomach from a massive dinner and ice cream that I had enjoyed in town, I said yes. The climb up from where he dropped me off was naaaaasty, but at the top there was a great vista with a view out over Williamstown and the surrounding area. I sat there and read The Economist, and Barbarossa showed up a few minutes before the sun went down. We made some phone calls and headed the 1/2 mile to the shelter, where we cooked dinner, read a bit, and went to bed. The other four were trapped in town by profound quantities of alcohol, and were going to get a hotel room.Yesterday, we climbed up over Mt. Greylock, which was no fun, again due to the humidity and heat. The plants were all withered and limp on the mountain due to the lack of rain, and the availability of water was nothing less than pathetic the whole way down. We made it into Cheshire pretty easily, where we got sandwiches and ice cream at a little dairy bar type place along the trail. It started to thunder while we were sitting there, and Barbarossa managed to collect some intel that indicated it was possible to walk to Dalton on the adjacent bike path and then a bit of road. I decided to walk the trail up and over the ridge between Cheshire and Dalton, while he settled on the bike path. We bet each other a bottle of "cheap" beer that we each would finish first; I lost the bet. The walk up the mountain was not very exciting, there was lots of thunder, and I kept hoping that it would start raining--it says a lot about how much the heat stinks when you actually want to walk in the rain! We arrived in Dalton about 15 minutes apart, and headed to Tom Lavardi's, where we're staying now. We hit up the package store (a strange Massachusetts contrivance), I got a three patty bacon cheeseburger for dinner, and we sat around and talked to the other SOBOs staying at Tom's, drank beer, and watched Hot Fuzz, an incredibly funny movie.I'm taking a zero here at Tom's, and tomorrow it will be off to Connecticut (60 miles or so left in Mass), and then New York and the beach, woohoo!