Date: 2009-08-09
From: Dennytown Road

To: Morgan Stewart Shelter
Miles today: 19.7
Weather: overcast clouds

The rest of my posts will now have a format of bulleted sentences without much elaboration, as I will have limited time to update my blog. The more I stretch into the New England region, the more limited internet access will be. -        In the morning, there were tons of mosquitoes caught in my tent. Began flicking them with my finger and watching my BLOOD splatter across my tent. They had been feasting on me all night long and now that it was light out, they were going to get it : ) It was a pretty disgusting task, but it had to be done. -        Tried to catch up with Jungli and Sweet Lou.-        Met some Southbounders..at the stage where we will be meeting many more along the way. -        So incredibly humid out..drowning in my sweat. -        Walked around Canopus Lake and ascended Shenandoah Mountain. Beautiful painting on rocks to commemorate 9/11. Was so drenched, that I took off all clothing and went behind a bush to let the cool breeze bring down my internal body temperature and dry me out a bit. -        RPH Shelter ¢ met three SOBO¢s, including LB. It was LB¢s birthday and he packed out a chocolate chip cake, which he shared with everyone. -        Had a NASTY slip on the rocks and landed my arm between two rocks. It cut my entire arm and created a nasty bruise immediately below my hand on my wrist. Very dangerous fall because of wet rocks and lack of traction. -        Hiked to Stormville, NY, where I went into Danny¢s Pizzeria. Was treated quite poorly by the manager, but was allowed to eat my food at the table. Granted, I do smell quite poorly and I do appear homeless, but I still am a human. -        Left and stayed at the deli next door, while the storm passed by. -        Had been feeling VERY sluggish past few days; thought that it was because of lyme disease, but humidity, heat, and dehydration playing roll in this. Haven¢t been able to sleep for a while now.-        Heard from several SOBO¢s that there was a weird couple in Morgan Stewart Shelter, who were non-hikers and are probably former meth users. This was my intended destination, so I just prepared myself for the worst. -        Very slippery rocks and even worse hiking at night.-        Arrived at shelter and couple¢s stuff was scattered ALL over the shelter.-        Both man and woman in early 30¢s, but strange as can be. The guy immediately asked: ¢What do you like to do?¢ I responded by saying ¢I like to hike and to sleep.¢ ¢Wanna know what I like to do!?¢ He then spent the next 10 minutes scrambling around the shelter looking for a notepad of the 7 things that he had written down earlier. He said that he loves Dungeons and Dragons and the game of chess, that he wants to be a Master Gardener, that he loves games and some online Warcraft game, he wants to write a book about people going to live on other planets and that he was going to call the book ¢Universal Peace¢. He then said that he wanted to ¢make trails¢, meaning be a trail maintainer for the Appalachian Trail. There were a few other odd things. -        They made coffee at 11 pm and played chess until midnight. They then took medication and fell asleep, but the guy kept shouting things during the night (gibberish, he called it). When I awoke to take a pee, I saw a syringe lying on the ground by the picnic table. What the hell kind of people are out here? -        They then woke up at 4:30 am to make coffee and play another game of Dungeons and Dragons. -        I told them to go back to bed and stop making such a racket, so they did pipe down for a little while. But, the mosquitoes drove me out of my sleeping bag.