Date: 2006-10-07
From: Vernon, NJ

To: N. High Pt Shelter, NJ
Miles today: 17.0

I didn't sleep real well last night. I found an exercise mat in the church hostel and layed on that, but it just wasn't as soft as the stealth tentsites I find.I was slow getting up this morning too. It was about 7am before Yolanda and I walked over to The Mixing Bowl Restaurant and had a good sit-down breakfast. The waitress only refilled my coffee one time though...bad waitress only got a dollar tip.There was a guy and his son came in a sat with us at our table. They were going golfing later, but wanted to talk about hiking now.When we left, I walked over to Dunkin Donut's and bought a large coffee and a couple donuts to go, then walked back to the hostel where Yolanda was getting ready to walk.We got the same cabby that brought us into town yesterday to take us back out to the Trail today.It was nice and cool, but overcast and breezy. I can live with that kind of weather. :-)))We crossed a couple cow fields that have had some recent trail work done to the bog boards. That was nice because the cow fields are kind of mucky.We came to the board walk that's over a mile long. Very easy walking and enjoyable to watch all the birds in the area.You could tell it was a weekend too because there were about a dozen people out there walking on the boardwalk.Once we crossed the road and started climbing the mountain, we didn't see any more people.I guess we did see one guy...a deer hunter who was out taking his bow for a walk. We talked to him for a couple minutes, then kept climbing.We walked down that mountain, crossed another road, then started climbing Pochuck Mountain.It was a long, steady climb, but it was also graded to where it was easy walking.We saw a section hiker sitting on some rocks and stopped to talk to him, but we didn't stay long because he had some mosquitos flying around him. It's hard to believe that there are still mosquitos out, but there were a few in that area.We passed by the Pochuck Mountain Shelter without stopping, then descended that mountain to Wallkill Wildlife Preserve. That's an old sod farm that is now a bird sanctuary.There were some geese flying around, a few greater blue herons, some white herons and lots of ducks...even a few songbirds. That seemed strange to hear a songbird because it's been quite some time since I've heard any.We kept walking and crossed the Wallkill River, then headed back into the woods until we came to Unionville, NY.Unionville is just a short walk off the Trail and has a PO, grocery store and Sara's Soda Shop. We headed right for Sara's Soda Shop because we knew we could get a hot meal there.Sara remembered me from last year when she first opened. Yolanda and I both ordered the meatloaf with fresh mashed potatoes and butter rolls. I had a milkshake, then for desert I had a large slice of blueberry pie with two scoops of ice cream. :-)))We left our backpacks on the porch and walked over to Horler's Grocery and resupplied, then walked out of town and back to the Trail.We were originally thinking about staying at the Secret Shelter, but we were in that area too early to stop.The rest of the walk went by quick. It was mostly uphill, but very easy uphill walking.I went off in one direction looking for tentsites about 100 yards off the Trail, but I saw a hunter and turned around. He had his back to me and never saw me.We walked another 5 minutes and I found more tentsites about 100 yards off the Trail in the other direction.I spent some time looking around the woods. I didn't see any hunters, so I cleared some sticks away from my tentsite and set up. There were a few mosquitos coming out, so I said goodnight to Yolanda and crawled into my tent for the night.I'm up to 117 leaves now....dang, I'm good!! :-)))