Date: 2013-08-17
To: Jim Levardi's property (Dalton, MA)
Miles today: 9.7
Weather: overcast clouds

I set my alarm clock for 7am last night. This would give me 5 hours to hike 10 miles to the post office before they close for the weekend. Psssht 5 hours is plenty of time, so I hit the snooze button. We eventually crawl out of the tent and start packing a little after 8am. Now I have 4 hours before the post office closes. By the time we fully pack up our gear and cook a nasty breakfast it is 9:07am. (Usually we have Pop Tarts for breakfast - quick and tasty enough. We were out of Pop Tarts so I had to resort to trying my luck at making some spiked oatmeal I found in a hiker box 3 states ago - it turned out soupy, I suck at cooking oatmeal)I now have less than 3 hours to get to the post office. I've done some speedy miles in the past but usually don't maintain over 3mph for very long so these 10 miles will be a challenge. I feel like I have to get to this box of mail today at any cost though. Inside this package is Tin Man's sleeping bag. He is being gracious enough to allow me to borrow his bag so I don't freeze on my way into the fall season. The overnight lows have been in the mid-40's the past few days and the thin sheets just aren't keeping me warm at all so I am super excited to have a sleeping bag option again. (You may recall that I ditched my generic $40 bag into a hiker box in Daleville, VA back in the first week of June). Another reason it's important for me to get this package today is because the post office will be closed tomorrow and then we would have to take a short day today followed by a zero day which would cripple our schedule. I hike out before Smirks and don't say bye to hardly anybody who slept here last night - Greenlite, 1st Gear, Marathon John, No Rush, Whisper, etc. I do 4.1 miles in the first hour. I'm impressed, but also now worn out. The 2nd and 3rd hours I only do 3 miles each. I get to the post office with 15 minutes to spare. With sleeping bag finally in my possession I just lounge around Dalton in my underwear, super sweaty and feeling proud. My sprint into town must have been a sight to see as I hastily ran down the town's Main St. trekking poles in hand, backpack bouncing all around, hiking boxers on crooked (to relieve the red marks that are caused from the elastic band), sweat dripping from everywhere, and a crazed determined look on my face. Also, to do fast miles this includes me not eating my only two snacks or drinking the smelly water from the Cookie Lady's garden hose. Smirks arrives just under an hour later and we grab some delicious veggie subs for lunch. We walk to the Dalton community center to get a free shower but unfortunately show up just as try are closing up for the day. This is sad but works out okay for us. We cross the street to hitchhike and get picked up almost instantly by a very friendly and happy lady who not only gives us a ride to Wal*Mart but also gives us a small bottle of wine and a $10 bill to buy a corkscrew with!! She says she always wanted to pick up a thru hiker. She has read a bunch of the classic memoirs written about the AT and fires off a few easy questions to us before we depart. Wal*Mart - yessssss! I love you Wally World. You're so cheap and easily impressed... and CHEAP!! I'm sorry for the all the bad things I've said about you in the past. I've missed you and your low low prices. Smirks and I resupply both of our food bags for a total of $41. This same shopping list would have cost us $90 at the small markets we had been forced to rely upon back in New York and Connecticut. We stay in town and tent up on Tom Levardi's backyard. There are about 12 other hikers here and Tom (the home owner) is super paranoid about noise levels. At any given moment of your whisper turns into a laugh or elevated level of talking then Tom, out of nowhere, briskly swoops in over your shoulder to warn you that if you can't be super quite then you need to leave. Southbounders and northbounders exchange information about upcoming hostels. Yellow-blazers group up to verbally defend and reassure each other that they are still okay with the fact that they've skipped most of the last 700 miles of trail. I grow more bitter. I want to scream at them to go home and to NOT sign their name in at Katahdin, but I take the higher road and bite my tongue. Ramen noodles then bed. The sleeping bag feels amazing.