Date: 2012-07-10
From: Stratton Pond shelter 1635.4

To: Sutton's Place, ManchesterCenter, VT 1646.1
Miles today: 10.7

We enjoyed a relaxed start this morning, having only a short hike of a little over ten miles to the town of Manchester Center, Vermont. The trail undulated, then went onto a dirt road to Prospect Rock. We continued down the road, but didn't see any white blazes, until we realized that... oops, we had missed a turn. We backtracked until we saw a sign for a trail marked only as "Foot Traffic." The sign didn't say anything about the Appalachian Trail or the Long Trail, but we soon saw a newish looking white blaze, and guessed we were on the correct trail. After an hour or so we finally saw a sign for a shelter and an AT sign. Whew! An hour later we met Solo, a sobo Long Trail hiker, who finished his AT section hike in 2010, and has hiked the Long Trail before. He was interested in hiking the Tahoe Rim Trail, so we gave him some information about it. An hour later we were at the highway to Manchester Center, hitching into town. Jean was right: hitching into the town of Manchester was easy. A nice young woman and her daughter gave us a ride, and dropped us off at the outfitter/grocery store shopping center. We bought more promethrin (tick repellant for our clothes), and I bought a bandana. We signed their hiker log, and asked for hiker friendly lodging suggestions. We decided to call Suttons Place, rather than the Green Mountain Hostel, to make a reservation, since Suttons place was right in town. Once we had secured our lodging, we walked to lunch at Friendly's for a burger, fries and iced tea, then to Ben and Jerrys for ice cream. As we walked back to resupply we saw Grok, who was also staying here in Manchester Center for the night. We resupplied at the grocery store, and when we came out, recognized Johannes's pack. Soon we saw Ghost Pirate and his girl friend, also resupplying. Another northbound thru hiker came by, and introduced himself as half of the Noodleheads. He was Rigatoni and his wife was Angel Hair. Johannes came out, debating with himself about whether to stay in town for the night. The Green Mountain hostel owner arrived to give people in rides to the hostel when we left to walk up to Suttons place. After we arrived, Mr. Sutton showed us around, then we brought up our packs. We treated our hats, gaiters, and my new bandana with the promethrin, then walked to the Ye Olde Tavern for dinner. Mr. Sutton had told us if we got there before 6:00 we could take advantage of the early bird special. Gary enjoyed crusted pork loin and I had pot roast. The special included cranberry fritters with maple butter, mashed potatoes with gravy, carrots and cucumbers, and dessert. Mmmm. We enjoyed the delicious, leisurely dinner. Back at Suttons place, we saw the Birds and Achey Breaky relaxing. They went for dinner while Gary washed out a few things by hand, and I blogged, using my smartphone. Once they returned, we stayed up far too late chatting, but enjoyed every minute of it, then zzzzz. (Random note: Though we were usually asleep by 8:30, every once in a while we would stay up until 10:00 or later, chatting with other hikers. Invariably, we were tired in the morning, but it was well worth it!) Life is great when you can hike on the AT, especially when it's an easy hitch into town for the afternoon and evening.