Date: 2006-05-19
From: Morgan Stewart Shelter

To: My Pheromones (Pawling, NY)
Miles today: 8.3

So I slept wonderfully last night wedged between 2 strangers. It was one of my better nights of sleep. Body heat is a beautiful thing. Perhaps my avoidance of shelters has been based in misguidance. Of course, none of them snored too much...perhaps I might feel differently if they had. And I don't know whether or not I snored, but if they avoid me the rest of the way to Vermont I suppose I will have my answer.It is friday, and I made it to Pawling. Unfortunately my attempts at hitchhiking failed, and I didn't make it into town until almost 6:00. So the post office is closed. I'll just have to come back in the morning. Conveniently, this town let's hikers camp in the park.I met a variety of people today...going into town feels like such culture shock. Actually, first I met another NOBO doing the whole trail. Her name was Do-Rag. we didn't talk to much as she was arriving at the shelter for a break just as I was departing this morning. As soon as I got to town, I was greeted by a group of about a dozen preteen boys who began whispering and giggling. I am not altogether certain what makes a grizzly, unshowered man with a huge backpack and a walking stick funny in a child's mind. Did they not have any fear that I would just spear them w/ my walking stick?Shortly after that I had the exact opposite experience. I was stopped by this rotund 20ish year old guy, who told me that I was his hero and an inspiration. (I am starting to get the feeling that these Appalachian trail towns aren't exactly going to be bastions of normality.) He wouldn't stop talking or asking me questions, and since i'm in no hurry, I let him go on for what must have been a half hour. He was fascinated by the fact that I once weighed 320 lbs.. I told him that I had only been seriously hiking for a week and a half...so that wasn't the lone solution, but that it couldn't hurt. Eventually I ditched him when all of our talk about food started to make me hungry. I decided on a Chinese restaurant. A strange selection, certainly, which i think was the allure. Even stranger was the fact that every woman that came into the place seemed fascinated by me. One by one, they would stop by my table, "Are you hiking the trail?", and from there various conversations ensued. (If I had known that all I had to do was stop showering and shaving, I would have done this years ago.) Young women, old women, women with families in tow...yet no men had any desire to talk to me. If a woman was with her husband, she'd break from our conversation, look over her shoulder and say, "hey Sal, this guy's hiking the trail...he walked here all the way from Jersey!". The husband would inevitably nod, and look over the counter wondering where his dinner was, I'm sure.Sitting inside was very refreshing. I don't find many comfy seats while hiking. It did give me too much time to think, though. My bones, muscles, and joints all ache. I am covered from head to toe with bug bites. Did I get infected by those ticks the other day? The train station was directly across from the restaurant. I kept hearing trains pulling in. I know that they go to and from NYC, because I took one to do a practice hike a few weeks ago. They come and go as I ponder my sad state...I am three weeks from having the ability to go home... but that train will be there in 1 1/2 hours.