Date: 2003-06-26
To: Vernon, NJ
Miles today: 13.6

We wake from our loft bunk, and turn off the fan. Yes, fan! This precious little cottage has electricity. It was heavenly to have a breeze all night in the heat. You can tell right off the bat, it's gonna be hot today.Today, Itchy has a maildrop to fetch in Unionville, about 2 miles north. I agree to walk in with him, in hopes of finding coffee. The rocks should be gone today, right? Everybody is limping and sore, popping the ibuprofen. Three days of NJ's pointy, ankle-yanking rocks have taken their toll.True, there are no rocks this morning on the 2-mile walk to Unionville. Just a trek through Vernie Swamp on bog bridges or, as they call them here, puncheons. I must say, I do love a swamp. Tons of birds and water creatures thrive in its fecund environs. If it weren't for the mosquitos, I could be a swamp dweller.Speaking of mosquitos, they are rabid today. B-Roc has been complaining and swatting for a week now - he's our canary in the coal mine. I've only gotten the occasional bite, which I attribute to the B vitamins I'd been taking. But this cloud of NJ swamp creatures overwhelms all that - they want BLOOD, B vitamins or no. I have begged my home support for my catnip oil, which has worked in the past. Research at Iowa State proved it repelled mosquitos as well as the neurotoxin DEET. The catnip oil is supposed to show up at Bear Mt. The others spray down with DEET, but I hate to put something toxic on I can't wash off at night. Add to it all the sunscreen - we've been out of the long green tunnel quite a bit - and there you have it. Marinating in an unholy mixture of greasy sunscreen and plastic-etching DEET... now get in your sleeping bag and cook it down, madam. We survive the bugs and make it to town, where a small local grocery is open at this early hour of 6:30 am. I go nuts, of course - buying milk, peach yogurt, a box of donuts, HOT COFFEE(!), a smoked turkey sandwich on a fresh-baked sesame roll for lunch, a Snickers bar. Hey, the others are equally gluttonous. Thruhikers always overbuy. It's that starvation mentality. We take our moveable feast outside and collapse with pleasure, leaning against our packs, stuffing our faces, exclaiming our approval. Itchy eats a full seven of my dozen "community" donuts.People smile at our gustatory enthusiasm. Here we sit eating donuts while the world goes to work. And no one appears to begrudge us that. Well, we must go back to work too. Much of it is across open fields in the broiling sun today, such as the square trek around Walkill Preserve, a former sod farm turned back to marsh as a wildlife preserve for waterfowl and such. It preserves mosquitos too. I cut a switch of cherry and beat myself with it about the head and legs. This is a lesson learned from observing horses, who stand head to tail when the bugs are bad, and swish flies off each other. Since no one out here loves me enough to chase after me, fanning, I settle for self-flagellation. I hear it can make you go blind, but I only do it long enough to need glasses.Another "revelation" - a leafy switch makes a decent shade umbrella. As I am burning though my 45 sunblock, I create my own personal little bit of the long, green tunnel and carry it with me in the fields and open boardwalks, discarding it in the woods. The ultimate Go-Lite accessory.Local weather reports 97 degrees out here in the fields, and on the open hills. We are melting down. "This is asinine, you know," observes Itchy at one point. I can only agree. Even with this heat misery, we both feel relief not to be walking in muck and downpour. When it gets hot is when I prefer to start hiking by myself. People seem to get cranky and angry - and then they start projecting it outward. I just don't feel that anger, and most decidedly don't want to be anyone's target either. I am learning to sidestep the irritable ones out here, and let them handle their own brand of misery. It's a developing wisdom I hope to carry home with me.But I must say, for all our temperament differences, Itchy Foot is proving to be an excellent hiking partner. First of all, we have exactly the same pace, and couldn't hike away from each other if we tried. Someone would have to zero for a day.But there's something else there that works.Neither of us would have picked out the other for a partner; t'was Fate that threw us together - first the weather, and then Cindy getting ahead and Ben leaving the Trail. The Itchy I know out here has a very low irritability quotient, and though we are Opposites, neither needs to make the other think like them. We both recognize "entrenched" when we see it, and there is acceptance. What a relief that is! We walk the NJ/NY state line today. New York! The miles are rolling away!The little hills are killing us today, it is the heat and humidity. We cross the boardwalk of Pochuck Swamp about 2:30 pm. We walk in the broiling sun, where we "steam like lobsters" and I sunburn right thru my sunscreen.The last bit reminds us of what we have left behind. We cross a swampy cow pasture and sink up to our ankles in black muck and filthy water, just a hundred yards from the road, our final destination.Itchy is pessimistic about our chances of getting a hitch here, but a dayhiker comes in as we are repairing our footwear, scraping off muck. He offers us a ride in his RV.I drop my pack and walk uphill to Hill Haven Farm, where Ken my camera guy has sent me a CF card. The guys pull in just as I reach the air-conditioned space.I get my maildrop, and before we even make the checkout counter, Itchy and I have swallowed a chocolate milk and an orange juice. I tell you, we are becoming animals. Animals!The clerk has seen it all before, and smiles. I buy a pound of sweet cherries, and a box of the local strawberries, and also an ice cream cone. Itchy does the same. Then our angel drives us the hot, three miles to Vernon, NJ.The lovely St. Thomas Episcopal hostel welcomes us hot and weary hikers with its air-conditioned cool. We sleep on carpeted floor, kitchen, hot shower, laundry, even a TV for junkies. Fun.I am so fried I just get into the cool and do not exit, even for dinner. Instead I down that pint of local strawberries, and the bag of cherries. Later, a parishioner comes in with ice cream. Yum!And, a miracle - it didn't rain today.