Date: 2005-07-07
From: VT 140

To: Stealth camp just south of Gov. Clement Shelter
Miles today: 12.8
Weather: broken clouds

start: VT 140 (Rutland)finish: Stealth camp just south of Gov. Clement Sheltermiles: 12.8day: 122I woke pretty early for being in a motel, showered (because I can), and went to the lobby to eat several bowls of cereal.  I heard about the bombings in London and watched some news of that on TV.Apparently the Rutland post office is a long walk, so I called and forwarded my new shoes from there to Glencliff.  I have so much stuff coming to Glencliff: shoes, food, cold weather gear, and bounce box.  Perhaps also some new socks too, if Mrs. Moosie is able to have them shipped directly to the hostel.  I'm currently using Thorlo Runner 3 mini-crew, and like them a lot.  They seem to recover their softness after washing or rinsing better than Smartwool and they're well padded.  I'm considering trying some thin liner socks as well, because Goldilocks has started using them and hasn't had a single blister since.  I get one blister in particular, on the outside of my right heel.  It has formed many, many times and calloused over.  Now the blister just forms under the callouses.  It's not usually too painful, but has been there the whole trip.Goldilocks has a bounce box to mail, but we'll just carry that to Wallingford where the post office is right on the way to the trailhead.We finally get walking and go to a great grocery store to resupply.  I'm now carrying a bit over 2 days of food - the most I've carried since the Shenandoahs.  We have to walk almost a mile to find a good spot to hitch, and on the way we hit the Ponderosa Steakhouse buffet.  Can't pass that up.  Finally we hitch a ride to Wallingford.  As we're walking toward the post office we see Cripple walking towards us.  I didn't think I'd see him again, so this is a nice surprise.  He blurts out that Search is hurt and currently off the trail.  Crap!  He hurt his back jumping from a tree into a pond.  Fortunately nothing more than very sore muscles, so hopefully he'll recover quickly and be able to hike.  Today he was pretty doped up on Percoset and I could see that he was still in some pain.  I proposed his trail name should be changed to Splat.  He didn't see the humor.Cripple drove us to our trailhead, and as we were saying goodbye (again) it was clear to me that Cripple had a wonderful week with his sons.  He had problems with his legs and couldn't hike as strong as he would have liked, Search got hurt, Cripple drove us all to the movies in the rain, he shuttled hikers all over the place, and generally hung out with lots of thru-hikers.  Probably not the trip he had envisioned, but I could tell he really didn't want to leave.  This thru-hiker lifestyle is very satisfying.  Good people, good times, nice places.Goldilocks and I finally began hiking at 2:15.  This is the first time we've hiked together since walking into Vernon, NJ.  It feels great to be hiking with my old partner again.  It may only last a couple of days, as he needs to do 18s, and I probably can't keep up with that day after day.  In fact we both wanted to do about 17 today, but fell short.  We saw this very nice campsite in a white pine grove about 45 minutes before dark.Some people have wondered what I eat for dinner, when not eating in restaurants, hah hah.  Well tonight I had home-dried escarole and beans with pasta.  It's all precooked so I just add water and bring to a boil and let it sit for a bit, then add lots of parmesan cheese.  I also ate about half a 1 lb. loaf of artisan quality Italian crusty bread, a container of various kinds of olives from the olive bar at the grocery, a plum, a few cherries, and some chocolate chip cookies.  Possibly something else which I forgot.Now time for sleep, as I should hike 24 miles tomorrow if I want to make the post office Saturday morning.