Date: 2003-07-11
From: Congdon Shelter

To: Zero Day
Miles today: 0.0

Apparently last night it did begin to rain. I didn¢t really hear it start. I know I woke up at some point in the night. The reason I didn¢t hear it was that I¢d had my radio on full blast. At one point I got up to pee and Jason said to check my stuff because he¢d heard a mouse noisily eating plastic and he thought it was one of my containers. It turned out to be that someone had left a wrapper, a candy wrapper, on the floor and the mouse was busily chewing that into little pieces. It rained last night and continued to rain this morning. Nobody stirred. At one point I looked at my clock and it was 8:30 in the morning and no one had even bothered to get up yet to go to the bathroom which was an amazing thing. About a quarter to nine I finally got up to go to the bathroom. Other people started moving around. Sort of. Because it was still very cool. It was like 57 degrees. Nobody is really prepared for any kind of cold weather yet. Four days ago it was still in the 90¢s. Everybody decided to stay and hang out for the day at this shelter. We just stayed in our sleeping bags and watched the rain. At some point we all got up and got breakfast and got back in the sleeping bags and took another nap. I got up around lunchtime or so and ate again. The hikers started coming through. B-rocks came through for a bit very nicely. Woke everyone up. Continued talking even though it was quite obvious that people were asleep. He just kept talking to people. So, we all finally got up and started talking back at him. Then two other section hikers. What is going on is the Massachusetts/Vermont line also starts what¢s called the Long Trail. Which I believe is like 260 miles. It starts at the Massachusetts/Vermont line and shares the trail with the AT for 75 miles or so and then goes off towards the west. It ends at the Canadian Border. It¢s a very popular trail and a lot of people here are doing it. One young couple came in after B-rocks with the intention of staying in the shelter. Then another older couple came in a bit after him. They decided to move on. At this point Draftrunner packed up and left. She¢s a little concerned. Her mother in law is in the hospital and so that¢s on her mind. Also, her schedule, she¢s got to be out at a certain time and a certain place. She¢s letting herself worry about that so she went ahead and packed up and was going to try and hike another 5 miles today despite the fact that it was still raining and wet. Right now it¢s about 5:00 and everyone is still sleeping. I¢m probably going to go ahead and sit up and read for awhile and then sleep and probably wake up very, very early and get moving tomorrow morning. Maybe I¢ll try and make up some of the miles I lost today. I have no regrets about taking a day off. I really did hurt my knee yesterday pretty badly. Both knees are in pretty bad shape right now from the osteoarthritis even though I¢m taking the Bextra. The day of rest didn¢t hurt me and I¢m feeling pretty good about it actually. Anyway, I¢m gonna head back to the shelter here and maybe cook something else to eat then crawl into bed and try and get a long nights sleep.