Date: 2005-07-07
From: Bear Mountain Bridge

To: Graymoor Monastery
Miles today: 6.3

As you might have noticed, my mileage has been dropping off a lot in the past couple of weeks. There are a whole bunch of reasons for this. The first reason was to time it so that Mike could come out and hike with me starting at Palmerton. I had to do a short day to get in there. The second was because Mike was hiking with me and there was no way I could expect him to do the kind of mileage I was doing. We still got fifteens and a six out of that. Third reason was because I went into Staten Island with him and got a late start the following day. Fourth reason was because I had to run into Unionville and sit there and wait for Vern. Short mileage in. A zero day. The fifth reason hiking with Vern out. His feet were trashed. We only did a twelve mile day out of there before we got out of Vernon. Reason number six was Harrimon State Park kicking our asses. That definitely cut down the mileage. Reason number seven; getting picked up by Eric. Six mile day. Reason number eight; coming back out of Eric¢s house on a late day and going only six miles to the Graymoor Monastery. Reason number nine now is that we¢ve got Estee coming out and we can¢t expect her to do the big miles either. The good thing about this is I don¢t mind in the slightest at this point. I think I need some recovery time and low miles are working out really well. And Vern is saying the same thing. He is totally not against doing twelve mile days for a while, while Estee is out here, because it will give him more time to recover from all the damage to his feet. So, this is what is going to happen for a while or at least the next week before we get back up to speed again and maybe start pumping out twenties.Anyway, this morning we got up early and Vern and I kind of hung out. We did our packing and stuff. Eric got up about eight o¢clock or so, made coffee and we sat around and talked for a couple more hours. He¢s a good conversationist. Likes to talk about a lot of stuff. No shortage of stuff to talk about when we¢re talking with him. So that was good. We finally packed up and he drove us back and dropped us off at a deli in Fort Montgomery. A very friendly deli, I might add. They were great people. We got good food. They gave us a couple of extra treats. Treated us like royalty. We got breakfast burritos, corn beef hash, hash browns, eggs all oversized portions and Cokes. We supplied ourselves of candy bars and Cokes and cigars, cigarettes, and then we started walking. By twelve thirty we were walking across the Bear Mountain Bridge.A bit of an uphill going up the Bear Mountain Bridge and the Hudson. That¢s what the Bear Mountain Bridge crosses, the Hudson River. So, we took it really easy. Tried not to sweat, which is an impossibility, but we didn¢t sweat a whole lot. We continued a leisurely walk to the Greymore Estate. Got there by three thirty still and walked down to the pavillion in there was Jersey Fresh there. I had not seen him since Damascus; about 900 miles ago. So it was a good reunion to see him again.Also, an older man with an eleven year old grandson walked in shortly after and they were just doing a section hike of about twenty miles or so and this was their first day out. The older man is trying to section hike the A.T. a little piece at a time. He says his wife lets him out one weekend a month and that¢s what he does. Brother Tom came down at four thirty to invite us up to dinner at the monastery. We went ahead and walked up there at five to a very good reception by everybody there. There was just a total of six of us there and we were treated well. They put iced tea and iced water on the table for us and brought us big bowls of chicken lo mein and a big pot of seconds in the middle. And we all proceded to eat andpig out. Just before we finished, Brother Tom walked in, we were having butterscotch pudding. He asked us if we wanted to take a tour of the monastery, which we agreed to. He took us through the various chapels; gave us a history of the church, of the monastery, all kinds of stuff. That was over by a quarter of seven.Meantime, we are still waiting for Mike and Estee to get here. They finally made it in about eight thirty. Almost at dark. Mike, of course, brought us four Hershey's vanilla creme milkshakes. Estee is very obviously tired. She says she¢s gotten a two hour nap since nine thirty yesterday morning, which is damned near 36 hours because, she¢s a nurse and that¢s what she does. So, she¢s beat to hell. Righteously grouchy, which is her right at this point. We went through her pack real quick to try to get through the stuff she really didn¢t need. We proceded to get her to get some sleep which she is doing right now.Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. We are in the Pavillion. The wind's picked up. They¢re calling for heavy rains tonight. We¢re sleeping on the picnic tables and it¢s an open pavilion on the sides. So, we¢re hoping the wind doesn¢t pick up too much and we end up getting soaked in the pavilion. It¢s a small pavilion. If it happens like that I may have to jump up and set up the tent. Hopefully that¢s not going to happen.Anyway, goodnight.