Date: 2006-06-04
From: Salisbury CT (Vanessa's House)

To: The Hemlocks Shelter
Miles today: 15.1
Weather: overcast clouds

8:09 p.m. Yesterday sucked. We woke up to rain. (My hammock was very comfy, but it was a chilly night, so my back was cold.) Anyway, we walked all morning in wet conditions, over rocks and stuff. Early in the day we came to Guinea Creek, which normally is crossable by rock-hopping, but which had high water because it rained all night. Kaptain and I walked well upstream looking for a place to cross. Kaptain decided on a sketchy-looking log, and walked across it, but I was unwilling to risk the slick, barkless "bridge" 10 ft. above the water and rocks. Downstream, back by where the AT was supposed to cross, there was a shallow section that wasn't flowing too fast. I took off my shoes, put on my crocs, and waded across, knee-deep. Practice for Maine, I guess, where you have to ford streams and rivers all the time. For lunch, Kaptain and I stopped at a restaurant .2 off the trail. It was a nice place, where I spent $10 I shouldn't have on hot cocoa and a delicious portabello mushroom sandwich. Lockjaw was somewhere behind and we waited around at the restaurant for a while, but then left because the rain wasn't getting any better and we still had about 9 miles or so to town. I was worried that Lockjaw had broken a leg or something, but then we ran into some people who had seen him, so we knew he had skipped the restaurant, because he was behind, and was now ahead. We caught up with him pretty quick. By the time we got to town, my feet were absolutely killing me, plus we were sopping wet and smelly. We stayed in the house of a woman in town who rents out rooms to hikers. It cost us $35 apiece, which is steep, but Salisbury is a nice CT town and it would have cost us twice as much to stay in one of the inns or B&Bs with their weekend rates. In general it was an expensive town. Even resupplying cost us all half again as much as usual. Anyway, staying with the woman (her name was Vanessa) allowed us to take showers, do laundry, and even use a car!(That worked out well, because the in-town dinner options weren't great; we got takeout Chinese). It felt so good to get dry and get rid of the musty, almost moldy smell of all our stuff, which had been at least damp if not dripping wet for days. This morning we ate at a coffee shop, resupplied, and hiked out at about 11:15. We slept in this morning, which felt wonderful. I didn't get out of bed until about 8. I slept well too, the first time in a bed since Team Steve's house. (p.s. I miss Team Steve, we called him tonight. I miss Sunshine too. I mentioned that he's taking a couple of weeks off to work, didn't I?) Today's hike was as lovely as yesterday's was awful, the miles were interesting, beautiful, and relatively easy. Plus, there weren't too many of them. Lunch was late, about 1:45, at Bear Mt. Summit, the highest point in CT, which was about 5.5 or so miles into our day. Soon after, we crossed into Mass., our 11th state. Very exciting. Tomorrow first thing we'll hit 1500 miles. We only did a very small day today. I feel great, and I wish we had time to do a small day every once in a while. But we don't. Our schedule for the next 5 days or so might be really hard. All 22 or 23+ days, and 1 or 2 25+ days. Not easy. For me, at least. Too many hours, too much pain. We'll see. This is a nice shelter we're at tonight. It has bunks and a loft (where I'm sleeping). Tired. Goodnight.