Date: 2006-05-21
From: Ten Mile River (Connecticut)

To: Mt. Algo lean-to
Miles today: 8.2

My spirits have hit a low point today.I am cold and wet and lonely.I only saw 1 other person hiking today, a local, and I didn't even take the time to talk to him. I did get 2 thumbs up at a road crossing, from a couple in a passing car...the Ebert and Roeper of Southeastern Connecticut.The hiking was rough...and if this is starting to sound like a theme, it's because the AT is named after the Appalachian Mountains...I probably should have thought about this before I came out here. (Seriously...laugh if you will, but this is not an attempt at jocularity!) My intellect is quite capable in some areas, but there are whole other areas where I am well aware that my thought process is just plain absurd. I hear "trail", and I harken back to junior high history classes...trade routes and western passageways like the Chisholm or the Oregon trails. I harken back to the journals of Jedidiah Smith, which I read 6-7 years ago, about blazing trails to California....and I know that they always sought the path of least resistance. The purpose was to find the most functional route from A to B.(this is what happens when you spend a lifetime dreaming, and a mere 3 weeks planning.)What I didn't think about is that the AT is not an historic trail or trade route. This is a trail created within the last 80 years for the purpose of recreation. I'm not an idiot...I knew that these were mountains, but I had no idea that the designers went out of their way to make sure that they were sending people over every mountain possible.Call me a fool....   this is not the end of my foolishness. Late this afternoon, the rain finally stopped and the sun came out. I was so rapt by the damn fireball, that I decided to lay out on a bald near the summit of Mt Schaghtichoke (don't ask me to pronounce that). Dry out...warm up...I took my soaking wet shirt and bandanna off and laid there for about an hour.Seems sane you might say, even appropriate considering my low spirits. part of the beauty and the freedom of being out here is being able to dictate the pace of your life with no one to answer to.But later on, when I got caught in a hail storm a mile from shelter, all that I could think about was that hour that I had wasted.Ahhhhhhh, we can strive for beauty, freedom and omnipotence to no end- but there will always be some forces that we are at the mercy of.Let me tell you, hail has a way of putting rain into perspective. I found a new speed that I didn't know I had. I made it through that last mile pretty quickly. It was very early when I got to this shelter (which apparently we are calling a "lean-to" now), but I was so cold and wet that I am already in my sleeping bag and it's only 7:00 pm. I have already finished the entire Tom Robbins book that I had sent in my mail drop. I have a hunch that it is going to be a rough night of sleeping...but tomorrow it is supposed to be 70 degrees (for the first time since I've been out here) and sunny, so I will try to dream of that. Maybe I will dream of eating pizza, drinking a Grey Goose martini, and making love under the sun of a beautiful spring day.yeah right...more like toss and turn all night trying to figure out why they make sleeping bags only 6 feet long {EDITED NOTE: more poor planning on my part. I have since found out that they do make larger sleeping bags}...what am I a mutant, that I don't even fit right in a standard sleeping bag?the trail is heading straight north now. every step that i take is decidedly further away from home. this is the loneliest of all of the feelings i think.