Date: 2006-08-13
From: Manchester, CT

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

Well here I am taking yet another zero day, this one also for good reason! My Aunt Candy, Uncle David, and cousins Jon and Johanna came and picked me up in Salisbury on Saturday afternoon and brought me back to their house :-) I have a maildrop in Salisbury so my options we to either bust out some long days before and get in Saturday AM or go as scheduled and "kill" Sunday. Since the offer to come here was given there was no question in my mind what I should do! Aunt Candy has been cooking up a feast (and bear hugging all of us for long periods of time... up to 2 minutes! and threatening to tie me and Johanna up and never let us go, or if we must leave at least we should be equipped with a personal safety alarm... but that's a different story for a different day)! Last night the highlights were definitely fresh corn and peach cobbler made with handpicked peaches... my cousin Jon who resembles a giraffe in stature was able to snatch the only ripe peaches from the top of the tree! Today we had a birthday party for said cousin (only a day early), which worked out perfectly since tomorrow he'll be heading off into the woods with me :-) Out of the blue that thought came to mind and I offered and he accepted, so that brought us to rummaging through closets and the black hole that is his room to find all the necessary gear. Reminescent of a few years ago? I think so! Anyways, Johanna helped me slap together some PB&Js and collect some other food the accumulation of which sounds like something right out of Patrick McManus book. LoL ! Well the next couple of days will definetly be fun! and relaxing too! Speaking of relaxing, just talked to Whisp for the first time since he got off the trail and he's baffled that I'm becoming such a slacker... just wait until he finds out that for the next 3 days I'll be hiking about 7 to 10 miles a day with my cousin. Then he'll no doubt repeat what he said to me on the phone "sure, you wait until I leave." Anyways something does need to be said about my new more relaxed (note that qualifier is necessary because of my personality) approach to this hike. I have in the past two weeks in particular been able to gain a great deal of perspective, especially in regards to how much I am enjoying this and how forunate I am to be out here doing this! Thanks in part to Tooth Fairy and Whisp, but also in a way to conversations I've had with Prana and Tomato Gravy. So thanks guys! I'll be back in Maine soon, but perhaps not as soon as I had scheduled :-)   Oh yeah, so the original idea of this whole journal thing was to talk about hiking now wasn't it? Perhaps I should do that! The brutal heat wave we experienced broke a week or so ago and snapped right around into almost cold weather. All of us who were sweating in our fleece bags a little while back are now shivering and calling home to have them send our 20 degree bags to us ASAP! The weather has been gorgeous though so no complaints here! I've even been able to enjoy the sun and went swimming something like 5 times last week. Yes imagine that sitting on a sandy beach and swimming in the lake for several hours in the afternoon and still managing to hike 18 miles that day! New York was a fun challenge. We found ourselves scrambling up and over rocks a lot (they wanted to make sure we didn't miss a boulder field) and walking many exposed ridgelines (I'm working on my pathetic tan). The constant ups and downs worked muscles in our legs that had grown a bit lazy in PA... all just getting us ready for the rest of New England. The hiking has been fun and the scenery beautiful. Rock walls are everywhere and open pine forests abound. Got to meet a Triple Crown hiker the other day so that was nice to chat with her. Maybe someone back home is working on putting up more pictures for you all to look at, but frankly I have no idea ? Did get stung by another yellow jacket the other day but the swelling was sucessfully combatted with three benadryl, which had me drooling an hour later and sleeping soundly by 7:30 pm.   Anyways it's been awesome to see some more family and hopefully I'll be able to see more family and friends as I move closer to the great state of Maine!!!