Date: 2022-06-30
To: Bennington 
Miles today: 17.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Day 78: June 30I didn¢t journal yesterday and now I have no idea what happened. Okay. Well. Today I crossed into Vermont. That¢s far. 780 some miles now. My goal this morning was to get to Cogdon shelter, a 12.7 mile day, but Hot Rod was gonna make it to town and Bubbles arrived this evening so I was kinda motivated. I also wanted to get to a CVS or Walgreens. More on that later. Was alone all night at the camp which was a rarity. Left my vestibules open in my tent so the predawn sky was easy to notice. I toss and turn and wake up multiple times during the night. The norm. At 4:25 this morning I woke up, saw the sky, and went, ¢fuck it. Let¢s go.¢  Was on trail and scooting just before 6 and started with a nice climb and then some bullshit rocks. The bullshit didn¢t piss me off toooooo much cause it put me eye level with blueberries¢¦blue blueberries. Ripe blueberries!!! Awesome! Stopped for a minute or two then pressed on. Trail was pretty calm, eye of the storm?, and I made it to Warner shelter, the half-way point for my dad around 10. Well. I could go to Cogdon and be there around 1 or 2¢¦.or I could press into town. Anddddddds, I noticed on GutHooks there was a trail parallel to the AT. When I looked on Google, I saw it was the old Long Trail (and a guy in town told me it was the old AT, too, which I kinda suspected). The current AT hooks east but Bennington is west¢¦. Wasn¢t gonna save me any miles, especially since I could get a hitch easily off the current path into town and this had me walking in but¢¦ it just felt more adventurous. Left my pack on the AT, walked the .2 down to the other trail and looked at it. Yep. That¢s a trail. It was actually a¢¦¢road.¢ One of those off-road roads with the big rocks and mud puddles. Here was the gamble. I didn¢t know if this road/trail was actually a thing anymore. I didn¢t know if I was gonna walk 5 or 6 miles and then find something making the journey impossible and then have to backtrack. But¢¦I was curious. Sooooooo. Okay. A long time ago, this was the AT. Before that, the Long Trail. Before that, a stage coach road. It¢s old and used. The nice thing was that it was wide but¢¦ a lot of the surface dirt was gone so it was like Rocksylvania all over again BUT with a shit ton of boggy mud. Parts were hard to navigate and I had to keep cutting into the woods. Thought for sure I was gonna see a moose but just a ton of frogs, a couple snakes, and ALL THE BUGS. ALL of them. Didn¢t even want to stop to eat or drink water because the bugs were so thick they were crawling up my shirt into my bug net. It was flat, comparatively, but so rocky my ankles are sore. With three miles left I went ahead and switched to my camp shoes cause my feet were hurting. Between Google satellite, GutHooks, and AllTrails, I was able to navigate through the abandoned parts into ATV territory and the rough road, down to the last couple miles of dirt road then into town. So. I mentioned wanted a pharmacy. Well. The other day it rained. Okay. I got wet. I hiked wet. I chaffed¢¦ in a delicate area. I¢m a bit irritated and was worried I might need to get something for it, but I wanted to just try getting clean and dry first. Now. I have had skin issues almost this entire trail, so I went into Walgreens and picked up some antibacterial soap to wash my skin with. Now, if you have ever had a cut on your hand and then used hand sanitizer, you know how bad that feels. Now imagine that¢s your crotch. The burning pain of hand sanitizer but somewhere you probably never had hand sanitizer before and the skin there is chafed with hundreds of tiny tears. I thought I was gonna die in the shower. I don¢t know if the pain means it was a good idea or bad idea in the long run¢¦ I¢m clean, though. Even my feet smell acceptable. Small wins at this point of, ¢hey, that pain was bad but it lessened!,¢ is where I am now.  Around 9:20 I decided to call it a night, but then Bubbles texted that she was in Bennington and heading to the hotel so I ended up walking down the street to meet her. So good to have her back even though it was a LOT of bad luck on her side that slowed her down enough for me to catch up. Now, if only we could get Pastor Bait back!!!