Date: 2003-07-18
From: The Inn at Long Trail

To: The Inn At Long Trail 
Miles today: 0.0

Aloha! Whew! Life will go on and me with it. I'm feeling so much better. About 90% there now. I have complete faith that by tomorrow morning I will be back on my game and back in the woods. I've pretty sure that all of yesterday was generated from all the recent travel. Exhaustion for the most part. No matter what it was it's almost gone and I'm a better person for it. Tomorrow I'll be wuhuu'ng; today I'll just smile a lot. And sigh.   After a "lie-in" I did make it down to breakfast and tentatively tried the French toast. It was wonderful and lifted the already rising spirits even more. The restaurant was quite busy with a combination of vacationers, AT and Long Trail hikers. I understand that tomorrow will be even busier due to the weekend and an Irish band filling the pub tonight. Neat spot this Inn.   Phone calls this morning also helped to raise the spirits. I talked to both home and Number Three. For the uninformed, that's Phenomenal #3, aka Pizazz. It seems I'm about to enter her neck of the woods, New Hampshire and Maine, and we're going to get to hike together. Wuhuu! Who said hiking in 2003 wouldn't be as phenomenal as 2001? Ha!   With phone calls made it was off to town with me. Rutland, I just can't seem to get away from it. With a bus ride down the mountain my first stop was Mountain Travelers Outfitters. Yesterday while preparing to leave Cooper Lodge Shelter I inadvertently either knocked off or let slip my Polar Pure (water purifying system) which bounced only once before shattering on the shelter's stone floor. Grrrr... Already not feeling well this didn't lend to improving the spirits. I've met several folks out here that are not filtering their water but I've met even more miserably sick from giardia. I'm sticking with the filtering process myself. I'll risk the possible later affects of the iodine over the confirmed affects of giardia now. Anyway, this was the reason for the outfitters stop.   Ken and Ben of Mountain Travelers Outfitters were fantastic. Unfortunately there were not able to help me out with the system I currently use but did have a different one available. They also told me of an even newer system that takes less time to "clean the water" without the iodine or bleach taste. They were sold out but did try the other outfitter in town for me. Also out. After that business was taken care of Ken and I spent at least the next hour talking gear, trail, and whatnots. Ken is a former 1975 AT thru-hiker and current White Mountain hiker. He was a wealth of information on the upcoming White Mountains/Presidentials and I enjoyed our chat session together. I would highly recommend stopping in to see the folks even if you don't need anything. Information is free and priceless.   Though Rutland seems to be a hiker friendly town it's not actually laid out as a hike-convenient one. Shortly after leaving Ken he was kind enough to pick me up and deliver me to the grocery store. That was perfect timing. With grocery shopping complete it was back to The Bus stop for the ride back. Somewhat like the weather on the 8s, The Bus is there almost every hour on the 17s. It was an uneventful and foggy but pleasant ride back to the Inn. A successful day all around.   Speaking of foggy, if I need to take an unscheduled zero day today was probably a good day to do it. The weather sucks. I awoke to rain, it rained through the morning, it was raining hard when the Ford 350 thought it would be fun to drive close to the hiker on the sidewalk (that would be me) and drench them with the standing water puddle, and it was drizzling when I waited for return trip home. Between the rain, heavy fog and clouds up here it really was a good day to zero. Sometimes I really do make good decisions on the fly.   Another good decision of mine is to close this down for the night. Still need to pack up my stuff and send off the journal entries to date. You folks always keep me on my toes. And then there's also that Irish band in the bar tonight... may have to check them out. For the journal's sake of course. Want to make sure you get to experience the WHOLE trail.   Oh yeah, before I go, for a little more info on The Inn At Long Trail, I've included a separate entry under Guest. Wanted to give you a little of the history on the place. Again, great place with a super Irish Pub. Just wish they had the accent!   Wait! One more thing! Timber, last seen at Mt Greylock, has just checked in with lots of new-to-me north bounders. If we can all stay awake long enough we may enjoy the Irish band beginning at 9p. I'm doubting any of us make it that long but maybe. It's good to see Timber though. Only met her for a day or two but it's like seeing an old friend. Strange how that works, huh.   Okay, that's really it. I'll bid you good night for now and we'll chat again tomorrow from somewhere closer to the Big K. Only 486 miles to go! Wuhuuuuu! Sort of.BSandTs: nahAandPs: the left arch is getting better, as is the stomachMandGs: being ill and out of sync sucks!...WAAH!Critter count: not a one. Thankfully the Inn is critter free.