Date: 2008-07-23
From: Wakely Dam campground

To: Stephens Pond lean-to
Miles today: 9.1

¢Rain. It¢s raining again.¢ That is how Turtle¢s a.m. journal entry began at Wakely Dam this morning. Ugh. The rain is really starting to get to us. At first it was beautiful: washed away the bugs, brought on the beautiful night skies, refreshed us, and was just fine to walk in. Now, it is getting old. We have never had such consistent rain on a camping trip. We just couldn¢t face packing up in the rain this a.m. so Turtle wrote and I slept and we waited for it to pause. It paused, we began to stuff the sleeping bags in their sacks, and then I moaned and groaned as I heard it pour some more. Then, somehow, by the time we emerged from the tent, as packed up as we could be from inside, the rain paused again. Ah! A quick pack up of the tent, get the food down out of the tree and eat a bar and suck on a caffeine candy (The caffeine candy I purchased on the NY thruway several years ago and it is surprisingly tasty and proficient at getting the job done)¢¦.and then on our way¢¦The road walk itself was okay to start. VERY little traffic! Later a bit more. A lot of bugs and rain but too hot to wear a raincoat. We did a serious amount of break-taking on the road walk but no real BREAKS ¢ if that makes sense. Pee break, raincoat on, snack out to eat while we walk, pee break, raincoat off, add bug spray etc etc¢¦ it left a little to be desired. The mail carrier passed by and made fun of us for hiking in the rain! The good news: easy to pee on the road in the beginning because no one around. Walking up the Macalusco drive (the private property where you go back into the woods after the road walk and where access is granted only to thru-hikers) was nerve-wracking but went fine and Turtle and I were a good team! The Macalusco property is gorgeous with all the out buildings mentioned in the guidebook ¢ each new looking and matching the beautiful country home. Flowers and signage abound on the property and when I spotted the familiar yellow ¢no trespassing on the Macalusco property¢¦¢ sign at the driveway entrance I knew we were at the right place and grabbed Turtle¢s hand as I said ¢Let¢s go¢ and walked confidently forward. Then, as we made it towards the end of the driveway at the back of the house I faltered and almost panicked and Turtle proclaimed, ¢that way, over there!¢ and led us to a clearing straight ahead from the driveway. Was that John Macalusco himself on the tractor in the distance? In any case we made it through fine and kept walking all the way to Stephens¢s Pond, save for a break or two to dig out some nuts and tofurky jerky. When we got to Stephens Pond lean to it was the most pristinely neat and clean lean-to we have seen! I swear I kissed the earth and the lean-to when I peered in and discovered it was in such great condition. We decided that we would spend a night in the lean-to for a change (at Spruce we hung out in the lean to but didn¢t sleep there). Everything is just sooooooooooo wet it seems like the way to go. Thank you thank you to the lean to adopters and all who have kept it so clean! We contemplated one of the two beautiful tent sites down on the pond but as soon as we walked back up the hill to the lean-to it POURED and we instantly realized we had made the right choice. Whew! We ate dinner in our ¢luxury loungers¢ as we have come to call our Big Agnes chair thing/thermarest set up and crawled into our sleeping bags by 7:00! It has been pouring hard all afternoon and evening and still is as we go to bed¢¦