Date: 2008-06-10
From: October Mountain Lean-to MA

To: Crystal Mtn Campsite MA
Miles today: 16.5
Weather: clear sky

Day 114 ¢ Tuesday June 10 ¢ Crystal Mtn Campsite MA ¢ Miles Today: 16.5 Total Miles: 1561.3For the first time on this entire trip and actually, I think, in all of our hiking, we slept last night with the rain fly off the tent. We had it set on top of the tent ready to be lowered and staked out if need be, but we had a clear night with no rain and no dew.   It was very hot when we settled down to sleep - too hot for sleeping bags. We pushed them to the end of the tent and waited until 10:00 or perhaps later for it to cool down so that we could crawl into them. We saw a couple flashes of light in the sky so somebody was getting a storm last night but it was not us.As we laid in the tent waiting for sleep to overtake us, Brakeman saw an owl fly over the tent, which was cool. Then later in the night, he heard 2 owls communicating with each other, each on opposite sides of the tent. Brakeman really enjoyed that as well. The alarm woke us at 5:00 and we decided to boogey on in to town. Brakeman has had hamburger and fries on his mind for quite some time and decided that we were going to hit a restaurant in Dalton, sit down for an hour or so and enjoy some good food and soda. But before we could hike the 12-miles to town, we had to get out of the tent. We did not want to! We were afraid that we were going to be giving blood for the next 3 hours to the Massachusetts State Bird again. We could hear the high pitch hum of the mosquitoes as we laid in the tent. Eventually, the power of the thought of hamburgers overtook our dread of bugs and out we went. It actually wasn't as bad as the other day, although we did have to put DEET on several times. We have decided to rename Massachusetts to MASS-BUG-MUD-CHUSETTS. Each day we walk through a lot of boggy, muddy areas, which of course, then become very popular areas for the mosquitoes. It's not a joyful hiking state, at least not to this pointIt was a little bit before noon when we came out of the forest and into Dalton with 90-degree heat and direct sun beating down on us. This is our 4th day in the 90s. It's extremely hot walking along the streets with no cover at all and unfortunately the restaurant we had selected per our little book was off trail by a half-mile. Boy did we have second thoughts, especially Grasshopper, on whether or not it was worth the walk. We actually turned around at one point in time and started to walk to a restaurant that was on trail but changed our minds and headed back as our book said this particular restaurant had good food and reasonable prices. Of course, we had to keep in mind that ¢reasonable prices¢ is per the New England definition.We found the Dalton Restaurant, sat ourselves at a booth near the front window and waited for a waitress to come by. And waited. And waited. Finally she came, with a not so pleasant personality, and we ordered our meals. The meal was excellent. We had bacon burgers, fries and chips. For dessert Brakeman had his beloved carrot cake, which was chilled and just loaded with nuts, raisins and slivers of carrots. Grasshopper had chocolate cake. We both downed 3 cokes which in hindsight, although it tasted superb, was not what we should have been drinking as it is not a good hydration liquid. We should have been drinking water as we still had about 4 miles to go in the 90-degree temps, uphill. Oh well. It tasted too good to pass up!We eventually figured out why we had to wait so long for a waitress to come take our order. This particular waitress does not like hikers because their packs stink and they stink. Yep, she told us that! She said that sometimes she has to stand as far away from their table as possible to take their order to avoid the smell. I guess once she realized that we did not stink, she did not mind waiting on us, as she was quite nice and hospitable after the first encounter. She even told us, "You guys don't even smell, how do you do it?" We explained that we take a little sponge bath every night. Quite funny. We're always amazed when people tell us how clean and good we look. And after hiking 4 days in the 90s, that's quite the compliment. Each evening we try to rinse out our shirts as well as take our sponge baths, so it seems to be working. We also now have 2 pairs of socks so we can rotate them ¢ wear one pair while the other pair is rinsed and dried.During lunch we placed a call to John asking him to check the forecast for us. We had been hearing about tornado watches in the general area but nobody seemed to be too concerned that they would hit Dalton. Isn¢t that what everyone always thinks - ¢it won¢t happen to me¢? We also really wanted to know when the 90-degree temperatures were going to break. John told us that they¢re breaking - but barely - mid 80s for the next 4 days. We¢ll gladly accept every 5 or 10 degree drop we can get, especially considering that we've got some steeper climbs over the next several days. Before leaving the restaurant, we freshened up the best we could in the bathroom and wet our bandanas to help keep us cool. As we exited the restaurant and were looking for the quickest way back to the trail, a businessman, a lawyer, stopped to talk to us:Businessman: Hey, how are you doing? Do you need to use a phone? My office is just right upstairs and I have unlimited long distance and you are free to use it.Us: Thank you, but with our cell phone we¢re doing fine.Businessman: Do you need a place to stay? I often ask hikers to stay with me and I feed them and take them back to the trail the next day.Us: We need to push on as we were trying to hit a family reunion and have more miles to hike today, but thank you very much for your offer.Businessman: Well, how are you doing cash wise? Are you OK with that?Us: Well, do you have an extra million? (Can you believe for the first time on this entire trip, Grasshopper did not yogi or accept an offer? Gosh, do you think he hands out $10s or $20s to hikers that are running a little low on cash? Drats, guess we played our cards wrong. Just joking!) Businessman:   Hmmm, I¢d have to knock off a client of mine, perhaps an old lady, to help you with that. We continued to chat with the man. He told us about the shelter we had passed today called Kay Wood Lean-To. All of the shelters in this area are apparently named for deceased people except Kay Wood, who just celebrated her 90th birthday with a big party, which he attended. Apparently she was quite the hiker and still is. He hiked with her one time when she was about 80 and he thought at first that it was going to be a horribly boring slow hike and the next thing he knew, he was panting and running as fast as his little legs could take him to keep up with her!! She sounds like quite the lady and quite the hiker. Grasshopper walked through town holding her wet bandana over her head to escape the heat. It was dry before we even got to the forest again! Just before we entered back into the woods, a van pulled up and asked us if we have seen a thru-hiker, whose name escapes us. We had not. The driver of the van is the infamous Birdcage Man that the mayor at Unionville had told us about. He¢s a very popular Trail Angel in Dalton, who houses hikers and provides laundry and showers. He says there's only been one hiker in 8 years that he would not allow in his house until he completely stripped off all of his clothes. I guess he smelled horribly bad. Hopefully the porch where the hiker had to remove his clothes was not in full view of the neighbors!We continue to see tons of tiny frogs on the trail. Actually Grasshopper sees more than Brakeman, as she goes first and scares them off the trail before Brakeman can see them. They measure about 1/4" to a couple inches in size. We¢ve still not made an unintentional frog-newt shish kabob, so life is good! We got to camp surprisingly early. We left the restaurant at 1:30, high on our three glasses of caffeinated coke, and arrived at our campsite at 3:30. I'm not quite sure how we did the 4-mile hike in the woods from just 2:00 to 3:30. That¢s 2.6 mph, which seems mighty fast for us. I think somebody's miles are off. It's 7:00 and about 80 degrees - a tad bit cooler tonight. We have a little breeze but we have to really concentrate to feel it. We are laying in the tent trying to keep cool. There is thunder in the distance. With the chance of scattered storms and, of course, being under a tornado watch, we're ready to batten down the hatches if need be. We've tried to pitch the tent on the very edge of a little knoll so that hopefully the wetness that we're getting in the corners of the tent during rains, will not happen as much this time. Goodnight from still in MASS-BUG-MUD-CHUSETTS, soon to be Vermont!