Date: 2009-08-28
From: Startton Pond Shelter

To: Bromley Shelter
Miles today: 12.7
Weather: broken clouds

This morning I emerged from my tent pleasantly unburdened as yesterday I had finally decided to stop, or rather postpone, writing these journals.Journalling it must be said provides its own rewards but it is also demanding, and for a long time it has been a little too demanding for me. I haven't dedicated the time required and I have fallen behind. Bursts of activity give hope of catching up but then all the good work is undone my a week of inactivity. For the last couple of weeks I have become increasingly haunted by the need to catch up, getting up every morning thinking that I must, must, must write at least two journals during the day. That's pressure, self imposed though it may be, and I just don't need that sort of pressure hanging over me. Its a distraction. A distraction from the slightly more important, although also somewhat selfish, pursuit of my own happiness. So yesterday the towel finally came in. Journal writing has officially been suspended.I'll still be taking notes and intend to write everything up when I get home but for the moment I just want to concentrate on soaking up every minute of the remaining 500 glorious miles. If I manage to write a few pages here and there great but if not then no guilt. Well not quite no guilt. When I started this I intended to finish it (both the trail and the my journal) and the people who have followed me should be able to expect no less, they deserve better and I can only hope that you can understand.I had a date with a grocery store today and so I was glad to find that the going fairly flat and easy. I stopped to snack and to benefit from an unexpected bonuses of the recent chilly nights - chocolate that is wonderfully firm and cool. I have become so used to opening a gooey, sticky mess of crushed up carmel and chocolate and of prizing the congealed mulch from the wrapper that I was genuinely confused to find an apparently pristine bar right at the bottom of my snack bag. Where had this come from? And then it hit me, the wonderful restorative powers of near zero temperatures on chocolate. Now my Twix breaks a reassuring and somewhat satisfying snap (much the way fingers of dead people do in murder mystery books), and the chocolate and carmel are solid and now melt wonderfully in my mouth instead of all over the packaging. Imagine, and there I was complaining about the cold!!A forest track led on to an amusingly arranged sign for Prospect Rock and as I sat at the lookout, with good views across the valley and towards the hills beyond what I assumed was Manchester Centre, a guy from Philly came by. He comes up to Vermont every year and we talked about his vacations, the fishing, his thoughts on the weather (wettest he had ever experienced) and his high school trips to Germany to play soccer. Another of the easy, unhurried and completely unimportant conversations and interactions that are such a pleasure on the trail.Heading on I arrived at the road and with Manchester Centre a six mile hitch to the west and a small grocery store two and a half walkable miles to the east I chose to turn right, marching purposefully on my way. I passed Bromley 'Sun Mountain' Park and its array of family orientated diversions - a means, I think, of milking some return from the ski resorts facilities during otherwise fallow summer months. It looked busy but was probably doing little more that ticking over and I passed its pleasures by.The store was limited but it was there (which is always a bonus) and as I was just looking for some instant snack fuelled gratification and a couple of days food it would do just fine. In the end as I headed back to rejoin the trail, the only noteworthy absentee from my larder was pop-tarts, definitely my breakfast of choice.