Date: 2013-09-08
To: Burlington, Vermont
Miles today: 0.0

Update: I'm about to go back to the trail. I need to go back and fill in the details from Wind Gap, PA 8/12 to Fahnestock State Park, NY 8/25, but I'll just summarize here on this entry for now.I had a meditation retreat planned at Center for Mindful Learning in Burlington, Vermont September 1st to 8th. I was originally hoping to walk there, but I had long ago realized I was too far behind for that, so the plan was to make it to the two-thirds mark at Kent, Connecticut, mile 1460, by 8/31, get a ride to Hartford somehow, and take a bus to Burlington. I woke up on top of Bear Mountain the morning of Saturday, August 24th with two new little itchy dots of poison ivy reaction on my left ankle. It was slightly burning all day as I walked. By the time I walked to the picnic shelter at Graymoor Spiritual Center, there was a long large blister where the poison ivy had started. I applied topical Benadryl, but it didn't have much effect. In the morning I cleaned it up and applied Neosporin and a BandAid reduce the friction with my boot. I walked 8 miles Sunday to Dennytown Road, and I was slowed down quite a bit by the pain. A trail angel pulled up and gave me and Echo, a Southbound hiker some cold drinks and talked about the local area a bit. He asked if we needed anything, and in retrospect, I probably should have asked him where to find a clinic, but I didn't. I decided to camp there near Dennytown Road where there was a water spigot (water access had been a problem through New Jersey and New York). I camped at a site off the trail less than a mile north of the road. I took an oral Benadryl and went to sleep before sundown.It was looking and feeling like a bad infection Monday morning. I was waffling between walking another four miles on the trail to get to the state park, or walking five along the road. I finally decided to backtrack to the road in case I might need help and not see anyone on the trail on a weekday. Some farmers in a pickup truck offered me a ride before I had walked an hour. They were listening to NPR and looking for their missing cattle. I asked them to take me to the State Park office, thinking I could get advice there. They kindly dropped me off there, there was a Southbound hiker getting water. The office didn't have much, but there was a map and a phone number for a taxi posted. I took a photograph of the taxi ad and asked about a food concession I had seen described on a map board near the water spigot at Dennytown Road. The park officer described how to get to it another mile or so down the road to the Beach Access part of the park. I walked there slowly, and got there about 11 AM. There was a bus running in the parking lot that said New York City, but I went to the concession to get some food and look for fuel. By the time I came out the bus was gone. I asked the advice of the concession operators and the lawn maintainer. They did some research and found the phone number of a local doctor in Cold Spring, 8 miles away and a clinic in Fishkill, 16 miles away. I charged my phone there and hung out a while drinking coffee and eating egg sandwiches. I phoned the numbers the Park personnel had found for me, and decided to go to the clinic in Fishkill. The taxi phone number went to voice mail, and I left a message. Eventually I looked for taxis on Google maps and found one willing to come get me at the park and take me to Fishkill, but it was expensive, he quoted $65. I agreed, feeling kind of desperate by then. I waited in the parking lot for a long time, then hiked a half mile back out to the road, thinking the taxi was having trouble finding the Beach access. Eventually I saw him passing on 301 and flagged him down. I noticed a sign for a train station as wee took the interstate exit at Fishkill. At this point I was thinking it would be easier to get home to Pittsburgh for a few days before my retreat than to get 16 miles back to the trail. I asked the taxi driver, the doctor and the pharmacist about the train, but no one really knew any specifics. The doctor prescribed an antibiotic and took a culture from the infection. I walked down the road to a diner near a motel and got some pancakes. The waitress didn't know anything about the train either. The Quality Inn clerk looked up the train schedules on the internet for me and also gave me a number to local taxi, Empire Taxi. This taxi charged only $7 to take me from the Quality Inn to the train station and appeared in only a few minutes. The train to NYC was about $20, while I was on the train I used my smart phone to book an overnight MegaBus to Pittsburgh for $49. So it cost about the same to get from the trail to Fishkill as from Fishkill all the way to Pittsburgh. On the platform, a few people saw my gear and were asking about my trip, offering to help. The express trains blew by at 90 mph or so only eight feet away from the benches we were sitting on. They took my breath away. The train landed at Grand Central Station, which I had never seen. I got some fast Indian food there, then had a long walk to 11th Ave and 34th St where the MegaBus would board at 11PM. I made it there, probably quite a sight coming out of the woods after many days with my limp and all my gear. The bus arrived in Pittsburgh at 7 AM and Don was there to meet me. Both of my ankles, but especially the infected one, swelled painfully on the long bus ride. On Wednesday I went to my local doctor, because the infection kept getting worse and worse. It was probably all the sitting travel, but I was fearing flesh-eating bacteria or something. My doctor prescribed Prednisone, and I was finally feeling better Thursday and confident that I could still go to CML in Vermont as planned. I took a buses from Pittsburgh to NYC to Hartford, CT to Burlington, VT, leaving 6 am Saturday morning 8/31 and arriving 11PM.It has been a wonderful week here at the monastery, but that is another story I will fill in later. Some local trail angels connected with CML have offered to drive me to Glencliff, NH this afternoon, where I will start north through the White Mountains, hoping to get to Katahdin before the park closes for camping. Then I intend to make up VT, MA, and CT southbound afterward, since they are not so time- and weather-critical. I will be OK with saving some of the trail for another year if necessary though.I left off the trail about mile 1415, and I will resume about mile 1745 or so (I don`t have my guidebook handy), so I will have that section to make up. My ankle has almost healed, and I picked up new boots in Pittsburgh, so I feel ready for the White Mountains.