Date: 2010-07-28
From: Wingdale

To: Wingdale Zero
Miles today: 0.0

Day 0 - ahh - motel beds & cold AC...one could sleep till noon...or at least till 5:30 when the 3 ton diesel utility truck right outside our room cranks up. Rrrring ding ding ding ding ding. Rrrring ding ding ding ding ding ding. Rrrrrumph blub blub blub blub blub blub blub. "Well I'm up now!" declares Genevieve, "Time to be on the trail anyway". Same as in Texas - it is a well known fact that diesels are better off left running while the driver finishes up in the bathroom, gets a coffee, packs his bag, loads the luggage, checks the tires, tells a story to the checkout girl, and pays the bill. By this it is 6:00 and we decide to go ahead and get up and walk to town for breakfast at the Country Cousins diner. Kinda upscale truck stop - big rough tough drivers coming in and out for coffee and breakfast but unlike Texas the 250# guy next to us orders a hummus plate with fresh cucumber and tomato slices. Genevieve orders a large omelot with toast and I get eggs over easy with ham, toast, apple turnover, and cheese danish. Even when we walk on the road to town and back I am still 1.0. Genevieve is about a half mile ahead of me as usual. I taek a picture - not a special picture but a special moment. There are moments as a parent when you realize that your sons and daughters are really on top of their game and leaving you behind (in the dust so to speak). It is a proud moment and reflective - Genevieve is strong, confident, self-assured, stubborn, sweet, kind, and beautiful...walking forward with a purpose and direction. I just slow down a bit and feel the wind blowing past me and beyond into the distance. I guess the trail is a simplistic model for living. All you have to do is follow the white blazes - how hard can it be? Just make it to the next white blaze - that's all you need to do. Wouldn't it be great if only we had white blazes every day to guide us? Maybe we do we just don't see them or we don't choose to follow them. Our family, friends and neighbors have been down these trails before but it seems we've always got to go see for ourselves - learn all of the hard lessons ourselves. We ignore the white blazes and just head down the yellow trail, or the blue trail, or the red trail. You have to decide what to keep and what to throwaway. Its all important. We will shake down our packs today because we just received more food in our mail drop and we won't be able to carry it unless we further reduce pack weight. Which are the keepers and which are the throwaways? How'd we end up with two pair of scissors? Why scissors anyway? 1/4 as many bandaids. Very cool and heavy multi-tool not used once. Duct tape never used. Box of macaroni - delicious but heavy. Don't need two bottles of fuel. Used 3/4 bottle in one full week. Takes us a couple of hours but we get our base pack weights down to 29# (Robert) and 25# (Genevieve). Adding food and water gets us to pack weights of 49# and 35# respectively. Could be better but we will eat a lot first few days. Will take some extra food with us on first day to leave as "trail magic" for fellow hikers. We ship the excess home to Houston and some forward to ourt next mail stop in Salisbury CN. On the road back to town we pass the interesting buildings that Charlie said were the old hospital, dating back to the 1930s, now all overgrown and destined to be torn down soon. I can't make sense of it. Why would there be a hospital two hours train ride from NYC in a rural area like this? The reality creeps up behind me like that wind blowing earlier in the day. Must have been a mental hospital or psychiatric center. Sure enought then I see the sign - Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center Campus. I look up through the windows and try to imagine what it was like back then. Who were the people that stayed there? Why were they at this place? Who were their doctors? What was the public and medical opinion of mental illness back then? Did their family come to visit them? Were they afraid? Did somebody love them? Which ones were the keepers? And which ones were the throwaways? There are never easy answers anymore. Time to get back on the trail I suppose.