Date: 2018-07-08
From: Dennytown Road Campsite 

To: NY 52 - Deli
Miles today: 15.8

DAY 124Once again a great way to start the day, picking up the tent and eating breakfast in our fleece tops cuz it's so cool outside.Today the plan involved getting to the state park where we can go swimming again. It seemed too cool in the morning to want to go swimming, but by the time we got to the park it had heated up enough, and we were glad we were there. We ran into Wicked and Waterboy  just as we were entering the park, they also came down for a swim. As has been the case lately, the park has a concession stand, so we went up to grab a quick lunch. It seems we¢ve hardly eaten  out of our food bags in the last 4 or 5 days.Even with the cooler weather early, it certainly warms up enough that we work up quite a sweat on the hills. Not sure why,  but neither Mary or I have had much energy, we both just seem tired like we want to take a nap. In fact after lunch and climbing up and over a ridge we got down to a road crossing and found a flat area to rest. We put our packs down and actually fell asleep leaning against them. Feeling a little better after the nap we pushed on towards RPH shelter. Near where the Graymoor Friary is we went through an area that has a ton of downed trees. A group of hikers we passed told us it was from a series of tornadoes that went through the area. They said there's another hard hit area near RPH shelter. The shelter is an old house that they made into a shelter. It is quite near the road, so it's famous because you can order pizza from here. It's still quite a hot day, so by the time we got to RPH shelter we found a couple lawn chairs and we sat down  in the shade. I think both of us fell asleep again. We debated about staying and ordering some pizza, but ultimately we wanted to make a few more miles so we pushed on further. Soon after we left the shelter we saw what the other hikers were talking about. We came to an area about a mile to two miles long that was just devastated with the trees down. Mostly massive Oaks that were either completely uprooted or sheared off near the top. I'm sure the trail maintainers must have had a huge job to get the trail back open. We were getting tired and it was getting late, but we decided at the road crossing that we were going to go down to the deli to get dinner. It's about six tenths of a mile down the road, but rumor is that they allow camping also. We arrived shortly before closing. We each ordered a sandwich with chocolate milk and ate outside at their picnic table. They offered to let us  camp, and they have a nice grassy lawn out back so we decided we would take them up on the offer. Also, we met Wayward who was setting up camp just before the road crossing. When he saw the grassy area here he decided to go back and get his stuff to camp here as well.There's another young hiker here too that passed us a couple times today, but he had his headphones on then and now he's currently on his phone, so we haven't had a chance to even learn his name. It was a pretty long day and we want to be up early before things get going around here to be packed up and gone, so we're heading off to bed.