Date: 2018-07-27
From: Warwick drive in movie theater

To: Arden Mountain Campsite
Miles today: 10.8

Last night Easy Win stayed up pretty late listening to an odd college station using the radio from the drive in. He seemed that he was going to stay up all night in his tent with the radio playing. I asked him to turn it down since the music was creeping me out. The sun blasted my tent at 6:30 am and it instantly got hot. There were no trees to block it from coming in. Everyone started packing up and we walked over to the grocery store to get breakfast. In the same plaza there was a bagel shop. I got a bagel and coffee. The bagels just seem to be better in New York. We hung around by the grocery store. Rosie called Josie to get a lift back to the Creamery. While we were waiting for Josie a trail angel named Moose showed up. He was giving Spot a ride back to the trail and offered us one. He got his name when he night hiked in Maine and ran right into a moose's butt. The moose turned around and tried to pound him into the ground with his hooves. Moose took his jacket and threw it over the moose's head which made him docile. I'll definitely remember that trick when I'm in Maine. He headed out and came back 15 minutes later. He had picked up Kayne and Zippy to take them back to the trail. Except they were in a spot that would be an hour round trip. Aladdin, Easy Win, and I waited and finally got a ride back.  Back at the Creamery Rosie, Snags, and Cosmic were hanging out. They were waiting for the creamery to open at noon. Customers started rolling in at 11:30 to wait for ice cream. We got Aladdin to have a photo shoot with the bra.  I found a jar of bubbles and added them to the background as Rosie took pictures. Luckily no kids had shown up to the creamery. Rosie wanted me to pose with two scoops of ice cream on my chest with the bra. I didn't want to do it because it would be too sticky. I wanted to eat more food and walked over to the hot dog stand down the road.  There was an older gentleman running it. He told me that the next shelter had a really nasty privy. Apparently they were going to replace it but the carpenter didn't want to haul lumber 2 miles into the woods. He wanted to build it somewhere else and have a helicopter drop it in. The ATC didn't want to do that because it would cost too much. I got two hot dogs loaded with chili and kraut and walked back over to the creamery. The creamery opened and I got a chocolate milkshake that had about a liter of ice cream. By that time I probably had enough calories for the day. It didn't seem like anyone else was going to leave. I escaped the vortex of the creamery and headed back into the woods.  The shelter was only 2 miles away and was a pretty easy hike. By the time I got there I needed to use the privy since all that ice cream was going through my system. At the shelter Easy Win was there drinking all the beers he packed out from the night before at the drive in. I ran over to the privy to find that it was filled to the brim and poo water was leaking onto the floor boards. I didn't want to use it and dug a hole instead. Easy Win was following the weather. It looked like we were going to get hit with rain again but it didn't seem consistent. I headed out from there. In 3 miles I met a hiker named Magic from the UK. We hiked together until he met up his tramily. He had funded his hike by selling his Bitcoin. He didn't like talking about it much unless someone showed an interest. We got to talking about English food and why it had such a bad rap. He talked about the amazing sea food and comfort food. I got hungry just talking about food. We hiked up some pretty steep rocky climbs. At some points I would just have to throw my trekking poles up and climb. Magic met up with his tramily and I moved on. I heard thunder in the distance. When I climbed up a small mountain I could see a wall of rain and lightning heading my way. I quickly ran down the trail to find a stealth site. I didn't find any pads and had to make my own by moving sticks and rocks out of the way. I setup my tent just in time before it started raining. I cooked dinner in my tent's vestibule making sure not to burn my tent down.  I carefully ate in my tent without dropping any food for bears to smell. I noticed that my rain fly was leaking again. I'll need to seal it in the next town before another rain storm. The hour flew past hiker midnight and it was time for sleep.Tonight I'm watching rain drip down in my tent. Hopefully the rain stops soon.