Date: 2015-07-05
From: Camp site 1461.6

To: Caesar Brook campsite
Miles today: 19.2

We slept really well last night which is probably due to the fact we were so exhausted from the hiking yesterday. We slept until 06:50 which is really late for us. I think our bodies were telling us we needed to rest a bit more. We soon had breakfast and tore down camp and we were on the trail by 07:45.      We had fairly good trail for the first mile or so but then the trail became very rocky. We had several big climbs and descents that were more like rock scrambles rather then hiking.   We met a new thru-hiker this morning ,"Funk" for the first time. He is recently retired and about the same age as us. We hiked with him for several hours with him.   It was nice to have someone to talk with on the trail. We came to a road crossing and Funk decided to get off and go into Kent. We continued on.      We had a really hard time following the trail today because it seems Connecticut doesn't have enough white paint to paint blazes on the trail. Quite often there would be a couple hundred yard sections of nothing but rocks and not a blaze in sight. All you can do is try one direction for a bit and hope to see a white blaze. We had to backtrack when we realized we were going the wrong direction.   But, such is life on the Appalachian Trail.    It was very slow going this morning. By the time we had stopped for lunch at 13:06, we had only hiked 9.3 miles. Normally, we would have 11 or so miles in by lunch. We knew it was going to be a long day.    After lunch we had a long steep descent down to the Housatonic River.   This descent was scary steep. It was nothing but rocks. One wrong move and ww would be going home with broken bones. We sometimes think the trail builders put in these sections to thin out the hikers on the trail. They probably figure at least a few percent of the hikers will fall and that will be less that are able to make it to Katahdin.   Hopefully we won't be one of those who fall!    Once we were down to the river we had a long stretch of trail where we followed along the river for 4 1/2 miles.   Right at the beginning of this section we found some trail magic, a cooler with cold water, fresh veggies, bread and packets of spam. We gladly accepted this trail magic. This was some of the nicest trail we have done. It spoiled us. It allowed us to make up some time since the morning hike was so difficult. We met two nice ladies out for a day hike on this section. We had a nice conversation with them about the trail and how our hike was going. The one lady has a summer home in Maine and offered to let us stay there when we go through that section of Maine on the AT. We told her we would gladly accept her offer and would call her when we get near. The nice trail ended too soon and once again we were climbing steeply up rock covered trails. We had just finished one of these climbs and took our afternoon break. We were both exhausted and talking about how hard it was hiking today.   We weren't sure how much more of this we could take. I think all the miles just start wearing down our body after awhile. We were coming down from this last climb when we came to a road crossing. There at the crossing were two coolers of trail magic. One cooler had apples and oranges and the other cooler had ice cold sodas and candy in it. The Lord knew exactly what we needed to keep us going on our hike. We have seen this kind of divine intervention numerous times on the trail. It seems every time we are having a rough time the Lord provides exactly what we need to continue. How blessed we are! We continued hiking for another 3 miles and stopped at a campsite by a small stream. We will be listening to the stream babble as we go to sleep tonight.