Date: 2017-08-10
From: VT 12, Woodstock, VT

To: VT 14, West Hartford, VT
Miles today: 13.1
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was to be a short day.  Warren billed it as 12.6 miles, but it was actually 13.3. (I counted this as 13.1 because somehow my cumulative mileage in the journal was over by .2.).  We regarded this as an opportunity to relax and sightsee on trail.  Warren offered to shuttle us to Hanover at the end of the day so we could get some of our town chores done early.  (Tomorrow is the official town day after a 10-mile hike.)  He noted when we left that all of us would likely finish by 3:00 or 3:30.  The hike was a pretty one through varied terrain.  After one long climb at the beginning, we spent the rest of the time hiking up and down short hills.  We passed through pastures, piney woods with no undergrowth, birch woods. For nearly a mile the trail was on an old dirt road with tall stone fences on each side.  Large trees were planted at regular intervals on the right.  This place felt like the setting for a fairy tale.  We saw a lot of mulberry bushes in the pastures.  I stopped several times to eat mulberries or raspberries.  These were short stops: although there many berries, most were not yet ripe.  We also saw a lot of wildflowers in the fields we crossed.  We decided to go to a farm market for lunch when we reached it about halfway through the hike.  We also wanted to make it to the end in time to take showers at the Hanover (NH) Community Center.  The Center closes at 5:00, so we figured we needed to reach our endpoint in West Hartford by 3:30.  We allowed ourselves 20 minutes for lunch, and that was plenty of time.  It was a short walk along a pretty country road to the market, which was located in a house. We ate our sandwiches on the front porch looking across the road to fields of wildflowers and a bright blue sky with puffy cumulus clouds.  When we resumed hiking we picked up the pace so as to average two miles an hour.  Terri and I arrived about 3:15; Arlene and Bill arrived about 10 minutes later.This is when we learned that Warren had planned to have a meeting about our strategy for hiking the Whites.  He also told us that last call for showers at the community center was 4:30, so we were likely too late.  This caused major dissension in the ranks.  Both Bill and I told Warren that if he had wanted us to finish by 3:00 he should have said so directly.  We could have finished by then if we'd known.  We were very displeased that we might not get showers.  In the end, we rushed to Hanover, and we all did get showers.  However, there was only one shower there, so this took a long time.  Once I got under the hot water I didn't want to leave.  Everyone else had the same experience.  We told Warren we didn't want to meet tonight.  Arlene, Bill, Terri, and I had dinner at Molly's downtown.  The food was good, and we had time for a beer.  It felt very good to sit on the patio and eat a real meal.Wildflowers: bergamot, goldenrod, Deptford pink, Black-eyed Susan, daisy, orange hawkweed, St. Johnswort, red clover, spotted and yellow touch me not, thistle, Joe Pye weed, yarrow, Queen Anne's lace (see photos).Tomorrow we'll be shuttled back to West Hartford to hike to Hanover.  We'll cross back into New Hampshire and start hiking our next to last state (that's penultimate to you, Diane).  It's another short day, so I should be able to do all my chores and still have time to spend with my old friend Meggie, who'll meet me on the trail. I'm really looking forward to seeing her.