Date: 2009-07-07
From: Pochuck Shelter, NJ 

To: Vernon, NJ 
Miles today: 6.5

Cell good OG notesI woke up in a foul mood and ended up saying things I shouldn't have. I won't go into details of what was said. Because of my big mouth we started hiking mad at each other. This caused us to hike separately for a while. We finally made up about mid day, just before a big storm blew in. We were hiking on the Pochuck boardwalk when the sky turned dark and the wind started. We hurried to cross a real nice suspension bridge and run for the tree line. Fortunately we made it into the woods before the lightning started. We're being watched over.C6 described the rest of the day so I won't rehash it. We're settled in right now and very comfortable. I'm sitting in a Lazy Boy and have a TV controller in my hand. Life is good. C6 notesToday was not a good day. We got a slow start and had little energy. Then a thunderstorm blew in very quickly just as we were finishing an exposed swamp walk. We had just made it into the trees when the wind blew VERY strongly. As we were putting on our pack covers and rain ponchos, a tree blew down about 50 feet from where we were standing. We had to come into Vernon to get our next resupply box. After about 15 min we got a ride into Vernon and were dropped off at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church Hostel.The church lets hikers sleep on the floor (carpeted) downstairs. It looks like the day care room when church services are going on. There is a shower, washer and dryer for clothes, we can use the kitchen, and there's a refrigerator just for hikers. While we were eating lunch at a nearby Burger King, another thunderstorm blew through. We wanted to do more miles today, but after such a lousy start and then lousy weather, we decided to stay at the church.Mississippi has been here all afternoon, but just decided to head out because the sun is out right now. It's 4:35pm...he plans to hike into the night. We don't like to hike after dark, so this is way too late for us to move on.I'm feeling guilty that we didn't do more miles today, but relieved to not hike in thunderstorms. I will hike in rain and thunderstorms, but that doesn't mean I like to.We hope to do bigger miles over the next few days. If we don't start doing more miles, it will be later and later when we get to Mt Katahdin...and we hope to finish by mid-September. It's later now. We had a nice visit from two of the church parishoners. They set up a rotating schedule for parishoners to stop in at this hostel in the evening to see if hikers need anything. We enjoyed visiting with them, and then we went to a nearby Italian restaurant for a delicious dinner. Now we're relaxing with TV and the internet. Having the TV (and lots of channels) is so comfortably normal. It's nice.Two thru-hikers just arrived (8:40pm). So far it's just the 4 of us. I don't think many more will come in tonight. Most hikers are settled for the night by now.I'm feeling more positive after a relaxing day (even though we did do a bunch of things...showers, wash clothes, and get a couple things we needed), and a nice dinner. I hope this bodes well for a good day of hiking tomorrow.We were happy to see black clouds coming this way again when we walked back from dinner. That helps us feel better about deciding to not hike on today. (We had heard it was supposed to rain throughout the afternoon and tonight.)Old Goat & Check Six