Date: 2006-09-19
From: Mad Tom Notch Rd, VT - Mrs Gorp's Home

To: South of Prospect Rock, VT
Miles today: 11.2

I woke up at 6am and knew I hadn't had enough sleep. If I'd been at my home, I probably would have slept in for another couple hours, but I smelled coffee and headed downstairs to get a cup at 6:30am. I took the coffee back upstairs and started packing my stuff. I have to carry it all on my back today because I won't be back here tonight. When I smelled bacon cooking, I went back down for breakfast. Mrs Gorp had made bacon, French toast and eggs along with orange juice and coffee. It was very good....she's keeping me fat. :-))) When I was done eating, I went back upstairs and finished packing. I finally weighed my tent. I've wanted to for a long time, but was never near a good scale. Mrs Gorp has a scale so I weighed lots of stuff to see what everything weighed. I was happy with my Wanderlust Nomad 2-4-2....it weighed in at 2 lbs 1.8 oz and that's with the tent which has been resealed a number of times and even sprayed with silicon sealer, my tent stakes and my stuff sack, oh, and two side wall pulls that I added with 12 feet of string on each end. Not bad for an old tent. :-))) I really had a nice stay at Mrs Gorp's. She's a great trail angel!! She even offered to slack me again today to Rootville Rd. She's got her own thru hike going on and was still able to help out. I got my bounce box ready to go to Moosie's house, then Mrs Gorp took me back out to Mad Tom Notch Rd and left me there. :-((( I didn't know what else to do, so I started walking south at 10am. My first climb was up Bromley Mountain. I passed two section hikers...one was going to Killington and the other was walking to Hanover. I kept walking and got up to the summit of Bromley. It's a ski area and in the warming hut is a telephone which I used to check email. I walked to the top of the tower platform and took a couple pictures, but didn't stay too long because it was windy up above the trees. I headed on down Bromley and saw a building at the trailhead to Bromley Shelter, so I headed over that way, but it was just the privy and I didn't see the shelter, so I turned around and continued down the mountain. I walked over Bromley Creek, then out to Rt 11 which goes into Manchester Center, Vt. My pack is heavy enough without thinking about adding more stuff, so I walked on even though they've got a great steakhouse in Manchester Center. It started raining, so I stopped and put my poncho on and walked another half hour to Spruce Peak Shelter. There was a LT section hiker there. He was already in his sleeping bag and it was only 2pm. We talked a little and I made a roast beef and Swiss sandwich and had a few crackers and a Coke. I was bad at the resupply last night because I'm carrying a 6 pack of Cokes and a one litre ginger ale...so much for lite weight pack. :-))) I went out on the porch where there was more light and wrote some of my journal entry for today. I started chilling down and I was sleepy, so since it was raining, I pulled out my sleeping pad and laid down and took a nap. I pulled my poncho over me and that kept me warm enough to sleep. I woke up at 4pm and it was still raining. I knew I wanted to sleep in my tent tonight and I didn't want to stay at the shelter, so I packed up, put my poncho on and walked off in the rain. I was only going to go a couple miles, but ended up going three miles before I found a spot to set up the tent. There's white birch trees around me and just beyond those are some trees in nice Autumn colors...one is even nice and red. It's still raining and foggy and just now getting dark out. I'm hoping for a good, long night's sleep tonight. Oh yeah, the leaf catching game...well, I must have had the pregnant lady put a curse on me...I'm still at 43 leaves. Hey Goosebump The Snow Princess, I promise to be good and not talk about how you could sit a beer can on your stomach if you wanted too, if you'll take that curse off me. The reference to the beer can is just an example...we all know you don't drink when you're pregnant. :-)))