Date: 2014-07-04
From: Mt. Greylock

To: Williamstown Motel via MA 2
Miles today: 6.3
Weather: scattered clouds

Happy Fourth of July everyone - hopefully you have nice weather for fireworks tonight! Glad to get to town for our rest day tomorrow - need a chance to dry out in the sunshine Saturday after all the rain the last two days!Slept in later since the continental breakfast at the Bascom Lodge was not served until 8 am - plus we were hoping the rain would slow down before we left! The continental breakfast was very small but full of delicious muffins - so good! We delayed our departure as late as we wanted to wait but it was not meant to be - the trail provided a rainy slippery walk down into town for us!Luckily it was a short walk into town with only three moderate climbs and one very steep section towards town - no falls and no slips while making good time! Mother Nature decided to drop rain the whole way down but thankfully it never got real crazy. Near the bottom of the descent we found some trail magic Gatorade that we enjoyed before road-walking to MA 2. A little soaked from the rain we called for a pickup from the hotel and the owner came out to get us. The hotel owner was a very nice and friendly fellow who showed us around town and helped us get settled in. Good service at the Williamstown Motel and great owners (although the holiday pricing was a little steep...)The rain continued most of the afternoon but we got cleaned up and went out looking for lunch - not much open on the Fourth of July (surprise surprise). Ran into Long Haul Trucker coming in off the trail - unfortunately his phone did not work so he had to walk to the hotel! He was good otherwise and his son had finished hiking with him so he was back on his own. He settled in while we went out to eat.Great pizza at Colonial Pizza near Desperado's and the Rite Aid - enjoyed lunch talking to two ladies who were very interested in our AT journey! All sorts of questions later they had to leave but promised to follow my trail journal - neat to meet people so interested in what we are doing!We got some miscellaneous tasks done in the room and talked to Trail Mamma on the phone. She suggested we stop by the hospital tonight to open Saturday up for relaxation. Since we were planning on stopping by tomorrow and had nothing else to do we went tonight to get Big Dawg checked out - here is hoping for the best!A taxi ride over to North Adams later we walked into the reception area and started to check in - the receptionist at the front got us in the door quickly because I think she thought Big Dawg had a stroke because of the droopy right side of his face. Pretty sure it was not a stroke since it only was affecting his face and not his whole side but better to find out for sure!After blood work and urine analysis and a CAT scan the doctor came up with his diagnosis. The drooping right side of the face was most likely due to Bell's Palsy which is set of by a inflamed nerve in the face. Nothing serious and it fixes itself within a week or two on its own - just have to protect his right eye from drying out or debris. Also had no kidney stones so the doctor thought Big Dawg had passed out very small particles and cleared up the issue. He said Big Dawg was slightly dehydrated (nothing serious) and that could have triggered the stone formation. Overall Big Dawg is in good health and was cleared to keep on hiking!The male nurse Martino and our doctor Ken were both very professional but very cool individuals - they asked about our trip and understood what we were doing on the trail and were interested to hear about our journey. Both guys were very helpful and friendly during our stay and made it a much more enjoyable hospital stay - they even brought us sandwiches! Thank goodness they reopened the hospital last month or we would have had to travel further to get Big Dawg checked out.Got back to the room very late and went to bed shortly after - ready to rest it up tomorrow!