Date: 2011-06-11
From: Great Barrington, MA 

To: Atlanta, GA
Miles today: 0.0

Well tomorrow is the big day. I will be catching a flight back to Atlanta. At this point I'm excited! It is going to be such a weird feeling being in my house again after over 3 months! I sure hope it hasn't changed to much! This past week has been fairly hot, but the terrain has been nice so it wasn't too bad. I must say the water sources in Connecticut were far superior to those in NY. NY had awful water. It was either really sketchy looking or few and far between. People had put jugs of water out, but they were always empty when I passed them which was quite disappointing to say the least. The past 4 days we have done rather big mile days all of them being 20 or more miles, yesterday I did 30. That was so stupid of me. My body hurt so bad... It was the second 30 I have done and I didn't enjoy it any more this time then I had the first time, but now that I get to sit here and do nothing all day it does feel worth it. Yesterday was by far one of my toughest days on the trail. The morning started out great. I was loving the terrain and the area I was walking through was so pretty. It was much cooler than it had been and I was just feeling really good. By the afternoon however, I was miserable. I have been damp for days on end now, be it from sweat or walking through damp grass or the evening storms we have been getting (more on those later). This dampness caused multiple issues including, chaffing on my hips where my pack rests, a rash on my rear, and hot spots and blisters on all of my toes. Not ideal. By the end of the day I was sick of it. I knew if I stopped at the shelter 8 miles from town everything would just get worse as nothing would dry do to the humidity, so I forced myself onwards. I was miserable. When I had two miles left I literally sat down on the side of the road and cried. I haven't cried like that on the trail to this point, so I guess you could say yesterday was my all time trail low. That being said I didn't want to quit hiking all together; i just didn't want to hike any more that day. The funny part is I met a lady from St. Louis and she was surprised when I told her I was a thru-hiker. She said I looked too fresh to be a thru-hiker. Now I may have been ripe, but I know for a fact I wasn't fresh... I also encountered the worst mosquito problem of my life! I was literally running down the trail and still slapping 5-6 Mosquitos at a time. It was pretty terrible. This happened at the end of my day yesterday of course and it may have been the straw the broke the camels back and lead to my road side melt down. This entry is starting to sound really down and depressing, but it was really just yesterday afternoon that rained on my fun parade. Yesterday had many good points too. I crossed into Massachusetts. That was pretty exciting! I also saw some really pretty waterfalls and creeks that I would have jumped in if I didn't have a 30 mile day planned. Over-all I had a really great day yesterday, until the last 8 miles. I think not having a melt down until after your 3 month mark is pretty good. Alright well I'm going to go enjoy town and prepare myself for my journey home!