Date: 2018-06-09
From: US 9W, Bear Mountain Circle

To: Stealth Tentsite at 1419.3
Miles today: 14.6

Note to self: Say three times: This is not a death march!  Yesterday went swimmingly. We had a pleasant drive to Rutland. The Amtrak Ethan Allen Express left on time and arrived at Grand Central Station only 45 minutes late. Finding bagels and the MTA ticket machine left me confused and stressed. Stops on the Hudson Line were announced, but I couldn¢t understand the station names. Once I found an online list of stations I relaxed. Garrison is right after Peekskill. Even with a very talkative seatmate, I enjoyed the ride. The taxi pulled up 45 seconds after the train, and I was checked into the Holiday Inn at Ft Montgomery by 4:30. I¢ve returned to Barnstormer BBQ for an early dinner, avoiding the ribs this time. I¢m trying the blackened catfish tonight and that delicious Michigan double IPA is still on draft. Ahh. One big gulp and I¢m feeling much better now. Kudos to Barnstormer for managing to blacken the fish without overcooking it! Happy tummy! I was up by 3:30 this morning, so I¢m planning to be in bed early tonight.  Willow is one day ahead of me. River is two days behind. The weather forecast looks good, although it keeps changing. The first chance of showers is not until Wednesday, and that¢s only a 50% chance. Surprise! I was sound asleep at 7:15 last night when my phone rang. It was River! She had Ubered in to the motel, and Puddles was staying in the motel just south of here. I had met River and Puddles at the Flip Flop Festival and haven¢t seen them since. They had delayed their start from Harpers Ferry by two days. After they showered, we went back to Barnstormer. I just had a half order of wings and another beer, while they consumed full meals. We shared stories and complaints, along with aches and pains, just like regular people. Puddles will be taking a zero tomorrow and River will slack pack the section to the Palisades Parkway, so that she and Puddles will be at the same point and can start there tomorrow. I will continue north today across the Hudson. They both shared my frustration at the New York trail west of the Hudson and are both still reeling from the Pennsylvania trail. It made me very thankful for the past week of rest and recovery. I hope to see River and Puddles again, and the Trail has a way of making that happen. It¢s very odd. Sometimes I get the feeling that this hike, and indeed life itself, is all about friends and food. What we do in between like hiking or working is incidental. I guess that is why I¢m so surprised by Anthony Bourdain¢s suicide. He had mastered friends and food. I went down to breakfast when they opened at 6:00, checked out and walked the 0.9 miles to the Bear Mountain Bridge, starting across at 7:15. I liked this bridge much more than the one at Delaware Water Gap. The Bear Mountain bridge doesn¢t bounce up and down with passing traffic. Then came a big 700¢ up to say, ¢Welcome back, Sugarfoot!¢ It wasn¢t a bad climb at all, with no rock scrambles, but the week away made it seem bad. I wasn¢t huffing and puffing, but it definitely took a lot of effort. It didn¢t help to have a herd of trail runners gazelle past me on the steepest section. The only animals today were chipmunks, in abundance, and a black swallowtail-type butterfly with blue markings.  The mountain laurels bloomed in my absence. The trail volunteers have been very busy here with their chainsaws, and without their efforts I don¢t think the trail would have been passable. Lots of trees fell during last week¢s storms that I fortunately missed. The weather today was mild, staying in the 70¢s and mostly sunny. I met a NOBO thru-hiker from Cleveland named Swish. I must have arched my eyebrows because he carefully explained that it is a basketball term and mentioned his GIRLfriend about a dozen times. Whatever. He is a youngster of 52 and much faster, but I met him again at the Appalachian Market that is right on the trail. I got there about 10 and had an early lunch of a grilled cheese with bacon and a Dr Pepper. Swish had second breakfast instead, an enormous platter of two of everything breakfast related. Another NOBO named Captain Black was also there, wolfing down an enormous double hamburger and onion rings. I just wasn¢t all that hungry. Captain Black had had to take several weeks off for a wrist problem at Delaware Water Gap. Swish left before I did, but I kept expecting the good captain to pass me. He didn¢t. I also met a local day hiker named In the Way and a Brooklynite named Ryan taking his 7 or 8 year old son Henry on his first overnight hike. Henry was shy but kept a refrain going of ¢Daddy, are we there yet?¢ I moved ahead to escape. I intended to tent at one of the group tent sites at Dennytown Road, but being a weekend the sites were all reserved by Boy Scouts. I wasn¢t allowed to camp at their sites since I haven¢t been vetted by Boy Scouts and approved. I don¢t think of myself as a threat to anyone, but I moved on and found a perfect shady tentsite about 1/10th of a mile north of the road. I walked back for the potable water and to bandana bathe. It was a good first day back, except for some reason my knees hurt today for the first time. I¢ll take some Aleve tonight and stretch out my quads. If they still hurt tomorrow, I¢ll take it easy and not do the 19+ miles I had planned.