Date: 2012-07-08
From: Bear MT. Bridge

To: Bear Mt. - Perkins Tower
Miles today: 2.8

Well, It was not a good day to own a Honda! SOS got up this morning at 5am and went to the car to get his glasses. When he got there, he discovered that our car back side window had been broken and the two back lights were on. The good news...NOTHING was taken. The plot thickens...by the time the police came it was discovered that another Honda's window had been broken. Before this was over, 6 SIX Hondas (and only Hondas) had windows broken out. The police kept coming back and the hotel manager was getting a major headache. The hotel personnel were very helpful in getting the mess cleaned up. We had glass everywhere so everything had to be taken out of the back. The good news...now the car is all clean and swept out...not the way I had planned to do this job! When I woke up at 6:30, I discovered SOS gone so thought he was at breakfast. By the time he came to the room and told me, he had already talked to the police and started on cleaning up the mess. The hotel got us the names of several glass places to get the repair done but being Sunday, we will have to wait until Monday. The irony of all this to us is...we were treating ourselves to a major hotel stay instead of the usual Mom & Pop, hostel, camping, etc. where we have never had any problems. So at a place where one would think they were "safe" from vandalism...someone obviously hates Hondas and breaks out windows in 6 of them in the parking lot right in front of the hotel!!! (They do NOT have security cameras) We drove to the start spot which was in Bear Mountain park where you walk through the zoo. I walked with him and then back so that he could go on up the mountain to the tower. It is an old style zoo with small cages for the animals. The red fox sat and looked at me and cocked his head as if to say, "Why are you out there and I am in here?" It made me sad to look at him. When I got back to the car, I discovered that he had left his notebook and AT guide papers in the car...he has a good excuse this time...so I called (on my new phone from yesterday)and told him. He figured out that he wasn't going to be able to do the 19 miles he had planned to do so asked me to come and get him at the bottom of the mountain...When I got there, he drove us up the mountain to the tower. It is a beautiful spot in the world. The view is fantastic and you can see the New York skyline thru the haze in the far distance. We enjoyed our visit there with many other people...most speaking other languages. We have reservations at a local Italian restaurant that is supposed to be good...we will see. No road name today...I was a little too frazzled to be looking for road names today! SOS here:Well it is time to catchup on what has happened to me over the last 4 days.Thursday - the Pochuck Creek and suspension bridge was a portion of the trail that I wish Trail Mama could have hiked with me. I cannot imagine how expensive it was to build .8 of a mile boardwalk through a swamp. It was very impressive. I missed Surefoot today, who with my daughter went to NYC to celebrate their 10th anniversary - their anniversary is the 6th but they had to head back home on that date. As you read in Trail Mama's journal for Thursday, the 5th of July, I had an unexpected hiking buddy join me for the last 5 miles - a dog. As much as I tried to shake my hiking buddy, he stayed by my side - even when I met others along the trail. My dog hiking buddy managed to embarrass me several times when we hiked on a road. She would hike in the middle of the road and make traffic slow down and stop for her. People would look at me and shake their heads like, "why don't you train your dog better than this?"I would describe Friday as HOT, HOT, HOT and the terrain in New York became much tougher to hike for me than NJ. Everyone seemed to be wilting from the heat including me. What kept me going was a fixation on a strawberry shake at the fruit market at the end of the trail. The shake was delicious and the shower was fantastic. Most thru hikers did not have the privilege of Trail Mama picking them up at the end ot the day.Yesterday brought the rain - I chose not to don the rain jacket and just walked in the rain. When you don the rain jacket you still get soaked from the sweat. Once again I set my sights on a strawberry shake at the end of the day. The last two days I have been very slow and exhausted at the end of the day. I was looking forward to doing big miles on Saturday. This was not to be.Today I planned to have a big day of hiking but plans do not mean they will happen. When you hike everyday, you know sometimes it will not go as you expected. Today as Trail Mama has already stated events kept me from getting on the trail and hiking early - I planned to start at 7:30 AM and would have finished somewhere around 5:30 PM. Instead I start at 10:00 AM and hiked through the Zoo in Bear Mountain to the Bear Mountain Bridge that spans the Hudson River, that meant from the gitgo (Army term) I had turned the 19.8 mile day into a 21.2 mile day. I hiked thru the zoo North and then back thru the zoo because I was hiking South. I wanted to be sure I hiked thru the zoo while it was open because when I started tomorrow it might not be open. Because I knew I would never complete the planned hike today before dark, I decided to hike back down the mountain and have Trail Mama meet me there.One can not become obsessed with the mileage. When the miles do not add up to what you expected, they result in more quality time with Trail Mama. It meant that I got to share the view and Perkins Tower at the top of Bear Mountain with her. The view was MAGNIFICENT and included NYC in the distance and an expansive view of the Hudson River below. Perkins Tower is architectually pleasing with the history of the tower on the first four floors done in tile - WOW.I had a weepy moment at Angelo's Sicilian Restaurant - not about the food which was incredibly delicious - but as I dipped my italian bread in the olive oil tomatoe sauce dip I thought of Brian Hiltunen. The reason I thought of Brian is I can remember Trail Mama breaking bread with him in Indianapolis at an Italian restaurant and how he savored with gusto mixing olive oil and parmesan cheese to dip his Italian bread. Brian LOVED life and knew how to live.Brian was a classmate, fellow golf team member and roommate at IU Bloomington of our son Jeff Haley. He hired our daughter Megan as a nanny for his boys, Caleb and EJ. Brian was an incredible young Christian whose sincerity made others his age express their faith.Brian would be there for Megan when I broke my neck on the way to Purdue University to attend annual conference for the North Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church. He told the story of being in Arkansas on vacation and cutting the vacation early when he felt God telling him he needed to be in Indianapolis. He drove most of the night to get to Indianapolis just as our daughter received the call from Jeff to let her know that Mom and Dad had been in a serious automobile accident. Brian, with no sleep, drove Megan to St. Elizabeth's in Lafayette, IN to be there to support Trail Mama and be with me.Exactly a week later, early in the morning, Brian would stop breathing, EMS would be called, Deanna Rae, Brian's spouse, would call Jeff to support her, and Brian would be rushed to the hospital. Brian did not survive. The world lost all that Brian would have accomplished and a shining light for Christ was lost, but his Christian influnce on me and others will reverberate through eternity as we touch others. I hope his sons will be told what an incredible father they had and how special he was.Brian is one of the reasons I am hiking the trail for HIM. I know there are countless others like Brian, who given the chance to know him through Church camps, will touch others for HIM. Please, please, please pledge per mile I hike for him at WWW.rightfuture.org. I thank you.