Date: 2008-07-17
From: Cloudland Rd., VT

To: Norwich, VT
Miles today: 15.4

Man oh man was I feeling tired this morning. I draggeg myself out of bed andB.I. and I left around 8:15 a.m. to get back to Cloudland Rd. for another dayof slackpacking. We got there and he decided to leave the trail magic therefor a few more days. I saw that Juke Box and Forest Gimp had signed his book,so that's cool.I started hiking around 9'ish and on the first climb I met 3 SOBO's, Santana(MA), Mango (Venezuala), and Gretyl (PA I think). They, like all other SOBO'sI'd been talking to had positive things to say about the Whites and the huts.Matter of fact, Mango told me not to carry more than 2 day's food and to shipmy tent and stuff ahead to Glencliff. I'm not THAT confident in the hutsystem, and personally feel it's a really bad idea to not have some sort ofshelter available if you get caught, so I don't think I'll follow that advice,but I am planning on hiking into the Whites with about 3 days food. I'mfeeling better and better about them by the way.So it was about 1 mile up, partially through a grassy field, and then into thewoods. It was HOT and HUMID today...close to 90, which brought the gnats andskeeters out full force. I think a good form of torture is to tie someone intoa chair, make the room hot and humid so they sweat and then allow the freakingnats to fly in, because ALL DAY, I had these tiny little specks zooming anddarting into/out of my eyes. It was like they thought my eyelashes werelanding strips and they were all practicing touch-n-go landings like new pilotshave to. So then I start pushing my bottom jaw out and I try to blow air out ofmy mouth straight up my face to "simulate" wind, which generally makes them goaway. It works great, for about .25 of a second. Once I even tried rubbing alittle deet on my eye lashes to see what would happen, and they were unphased.I got up this climb and started down a bit and stopped at the Thistle HillShelter, to use the privy. I couldn't find the dumb thing for the longesttime, but while hanging out, 2 trail volunteers came by who were paintingblazes, and these men were hilarious. They said they left all of theirequipment up on the trail and that I'd probably see it when I left. I askedthem if there was anything cool there that I could steal. They said, "yes...achainsaw." Good thing I'm not a thief! So the privy at this shelter isawesome. It's also round, but the top half is all screen with a wooden roofover it. I liked it because when you're sitting there doing your biz, you havea 360 degree view of the woods around you.Oh, the maintainers also told me of a time they hiked up there and someone hadleft a TON of little children's toys at the shelter for some reason, so theyhad to pack them all out.I headed on and it was little rolling ups and downs for about 6 miles, on anoverall descent heading towards VT 14. Several places had exposed grassy hillsand my gosh the temp difference in direct sunlight was crazy. Also, I hadsunscreen on my face and neck in particular, but my eyes are definitelysensitive to the sunlight. I may have to start hiking with my OR Sombrero,because I still have about 10 days of the Doxy to take...ugh.On a couple of the exposed grassy hills, the trail was almost comletely hiddeenby waist and then shoulder-high weeds that you essentially had to push through. I don't care for this, mainly because it feels like every bug in the world isgetting on me and I'm cautious for snakes in this tall tall stuff. Luckily, itdidn't last that long though. You could see all of the rolling mountains aroundand green valleys and the bright blue sky today. It was beautiful.On one small climb I met 2 women, a little boy, and their 14 year old dog (whichI personally didn't think had any place out hiking..because it was so hot andthat's pretty old for a dog, but hey..who am I to judge right?). I was tellingthem how much I loved Vermont, and the people here. I noticed a littleapprehensiveness from them and then they said, "I guess it depends on yourperspective." They had moved here from Alaska, and I got the impression theyweren't comfortable with how progressive people are here, and I was coming fromhaving grown up in Oklahoma where it's culturally acceptable to try to savesomeone's soul on a daily basis, and I LOVE the progressiveness of this state.First people I've met in a long time that I didn't quite mesh with. It's allgood though.I was trying to get to VT 14 to a little store that makes burgers for lunch, butat 12:30, I couldn't wait to eat any longer, so I sat down on a log and doveinto my Oreo's, combos, and all that unhealthy stuff that you get to eat outhere. I actually had cell service too so I called Karen. She's home nowrecovering from jetlag and our boys, Hank and Henry, were totally excited tohave her home. Of course, United airlines lost her luggage (and they lost iton the trip TO her destination too!!), so she was at home waiting for them tobring it to her. She doesn't get uptight about that stuff though.So I headed on and finally got to VT 14 around 1:00. You cross the White Riverover this bridge where local kids often jump off and into the river.   Well,there were 3 girls there, 1 was a veteran jumper and the other 2 were new, so Iasked if I could take their pics when they jumped. Of course, this took awhile,because this bridge was pretty high and it goes against all natural instinctsto jump off a bridge, but they both finally did it and I snapped pics of both.The first girl was Pat, and second Cassidy. Pretty cool.Then I walked around the corner and found West Hartford Village Store, where Iwalked in, washed my hands and face and then HAD to order some chocolate chipicecream! I also bought some orange Powerade, which I really don't likePowerade, but they didn't have Gatorade. It was so hot outside, and I wasreally feeling tired today, so I sat there for an hour and enjoyed the semi-airconditioning of the place. It was a cool store with a little bit of everything.While I was there, 2 couples came in that were obviously riding motorcycles. Iasked where they came from and where they were headed to. The man goes, "Youwon't believe where we started...we rode here from Ottawa, Canada." I then gotto respond by saying, "Wow, that's cool, but YOU probably won't believe where Istarted from to get HERE....I hiked here from Georgia!" LOL When do you getthe chance to say that? It was classic.I started hiking again with about 8 miles to go, around 2:30 p.m. It was aroadwalk (SO HOT) for a bit and at Podunk Road (hilarious name huh?) you enterthe woods again, and the moment I hit the shade, the temps dropped probably 10degrees. It was a 3 mile climb, but through my favorite mystical pine forestagain. The trail was totally covered with spongy pine needles, which reallymakes a difference on the ole' knees and feet. I startled a deer, first oneI've seen in weeks. I was so hoping it was a moose, but figured my elevationwas too low for them.So this orange powerade? Oh man...so disgusting. You know what the aftertasteis like? This is gross. The feeling/taste orange powerade leaves in the backof your throat is EXACTLY like that disgusting acidic coating left on the backof your throat after you throw up. I almost couldn't drink the stuff. I cameto a stream and chugged the stuff, knowing I'd been sweating buckets and neededthe electrolytes. I then refilled my canteen with yummy cool stream water.This was better.After I got to the top of this climb, I had 5 miles left. It was again, rollingup and down with an overall direction of down. Oh man, my knees (even with anextremely LIGHT daypack) were just dying. I am still breaking in my new shoes,so hope this doesn't get worse, but it was painful at the end of the day. Thetrail would wind through forests and up and over and around...it was quitebeautiful. I got to the last little climb and ended up on a road. I didn'trealize the last mile of the day would be a roadwalk.I passed a house of a thru-hiker from last year, The Brain. There was a cooler,register, and I enjoyed some chocolate chip walnut bread. Yummy....The road, however, was hurting my knees even more (it was a steep hill) and Iactually got to the point I just had to sit on a bridge guardrail for a bit. Awoman walking with her baby came by and I verified I hadn't passed the road toDan and Whit's, a store I was meeting B.I. at. She said, "Nope, it's right upthere...and it's so great what you're doing!"You know..totally unsolicited encouragement from strangers is so nice. I thinkwe should do this for one another on a daily basis. So I headed up a smallhill and then towards an intersection. Some people in a car pulled over askingme for directions to the trail. I thought this was hilarious..because that wasthe ONLY place I could give them directions to. I also told them not to gointo the woods without deet.Then I noticed a guy pulled over in his truck and hopped out. He asked if I washiking and I said yup. Well, it was a guy who actually owns a restaurant inNorwich, but who is also a multi-year thru-hiker, Traildog. He also happens tobe the crazy person who holds the speed record for hiking the entire AT in 47days back in 2005. Of course folks, people going for speed records are totallysupported and don't carry a loaded pack, etc. They are essentially running thetrail and meet their support team each day, who have food, etc. for them.Still, 47 days? That's an average of 46.2 miles PER DAY!!!!   Honestly, I'llbe happy just to FINISH the trail!So I walked around the corner and saw Dan & Whit's. Ok, so this place has asign on the window that states, "If we don't have it, you don't need it."Man..they were telling the truth! It was an AWESOME store. Just as I got tothe doors of it, B.I. drove up too..perfect timing. It was about 6:20 p.m. Wewent in together and my gosh, this is like the coolest place. Think of it as aone-stop shopping place, but with the charm of wooden floors and an old oldbuilding and history. I got another banadana there. Can't remember if Imentioned this, but I left my flame bandana laying on a rockyesterday...ARGH!!!! They didn't have any skull or flame ones here, but I gotone of my favorite color...maroon red. Then B.I. showed me that there's thiswhole back section, and upstairs, AND downstairs to this place. It was amazingand really fun to look around. There's also groceries, fresh produce, hardware,just freakin everything. I could have spent 2 hrs wandering around. I pickedup a pint of milk in a glass jug...now where can you find those anymore?We left and drove over to EBA's, a fantastic pizza place. I told B.I. I'd buy,so we got 3 pizza's to go. While we were waiting, we sat outside on thesidewalk and B.I. told me yet another insane near-death story of when he was acommercial diver. Seriously folks, this man has lived an amazing life, andhe's the most humble and gentle-natured man I think I've ever met in my life.So cool to have been brought into each other's spheres via this trail.Pizza was ready so we drove home, and him, Katie, and I enjoyed this stuff.This pizza was SO good. I sort of ate 6 pieces AND a giant chocolate chipcookie that the kid at EBA's just gave to me AND another oatmeal chocolate chipcookie that Katie made! Oink oink oink....that's me!I took a shower and Karen called when I was in, so I gave her a call after I got out. We're down to just a few weeks more and then she'll be making her way up here. I am so excited about that.Tomorrow, (and probably the next day too) I'm chilling out again, and then theplan is to head out from Norwich with my full pack on Sunday. Watch out WhiteMountains...here I come!~Certain