Date: 2005-06-20
From: Hudson River, Fort Montgomery

To: Campsite past Sunk Mine Road
Miles today: 16.7

It never fails, I always wake up early in a hotel room. I never get to sleep in. I walked down to the post office to get my mail only to find that it doesn't open until 8:30 instead of 8. I walked over to the convience store for breakfast and had a breakfast bagel, which left much to be desired. I went back to the post office to find out that my stove part had not came in! I guess this would be a good time to mention that the ignitor on my jetboil is broken if I have not mentioned it yet. I forwarded it to Kent.I wasn't quite ready to go back to the trail when the hotel owner brought Stick back, so I hung around for a bit and watched some T.V. It came time to check out at 10 and then the manager brought me back. I crossed the Hudson River and the trail went back up into the woods. I hadn't been going more than five minutes when I passed two groups of 20 3rd or 4th graders. I talked to them for twenty minutes, answering questions about my hike. I really enjoyed that, they were all very polite. A little after that, I took a wrong turn and ended up bushwacking a bit, so I figured that this wasn't the trail. Luckily I recognized this after only about 15 minutes, so I didn't lose much time at all. This wouldn't be the only occurance of bushwacking today, as I became disoriented several times. I took some time out to go check out Greymoor Monastery. There was trash all over the roads and I got a much less than warm welcome. I went to ask about mass and the priest was rather short with me. Anyway, mass isn't until tomorrow at 7 a.m. and it is only noon, so I will be missing out. I tried though. In the late afternoon, I came to a road crossing. There was a man sitting in his car waiting for his kid to get home on the bus. I struck up a conversation, hoping maybe to get a ride into town for pizza. He did the next best thing, he called and let me order a pizza and they would deliver it right here to the road, since it is a residential area. The guy didn't speak good english at all and I had to tell him my order several times. I was really excited though. This excitement was short lived, as I waited an hour and he was a no-show.While I was waiting, a lady came along with her dog, and it immediately started growling at me. She said, "Don't worry, he won't bite." Ahh, a classic line right there. To top things off though, she continued to tell me about how the dog was acting weird ever since he had gotten bit. If that dog had gotten any closer, it was going to get the Leki treatment.I gave up waiting and continued on the trail, frustrated that I had lost over an hour. A little later, I came across a decent stream and stopped to cook dinner. Creek water and Lipton; not as good as pizza and pop, but it'll do. All of today's climbs didn't really bother me that much. Maybe I'm not as out of shape as I thought. But then again, these aren't REAL mountains yet. I walked all day by myself, I never caught Stick. Around eight, I found a nice spot to set up camp. I had just pulled out my tent, when I heard Stick call from up the trail. I had stopped less than 100 yards from him! What are the odds of that?