Date: 2016-05-06
From: Unionville, NY

To: Greenwood Lake, NY
Miles today: 25.0
Weather: moderate rain

We were very grateful for the little oasis at the park that the town set up for us through hikers. That way we could eat and resupply and just go to bed without hiking back out of town and looking for a place to set up camp. It did have a few things that were kind of a challenge for me in terms of getting a good nights sleep. The church bell for one thing. This rang every hour on the hour all night long. I think the church was within a block or so of us. The second was the two large flood lights that lit the park up. And the third was the several teenagers that were running through the town yelling at the top of their lungs and kicking metal trash cans around. So not my best night of sleep, but we had nice grass to sleep on and no rocks!We were up at 4am and on trail by 5am today. We walked through town and back out to where we left the trail last night. Shortly we were on a very nice piece of trail with smooth tread. Ahhhh. It feels good to stretch our legs and stride out without tripping over the rocks all the time. Now if only the weather would cooperate. But no. Within about a half an hour of our start time, it was raining. Well, you can't have everything I guess. Today had more short and very steep ups and downs in it. Again , the rain made this a bit treacherous at times. We stopped at a shelter to have our break. This got us out of the rain for about 15 minutes anyway. We also walked through the Wallkill National Scenic Wildlife Perserve. There was a large wooden bridge to span the water we crossed there. It was kind of a weird day in terms of weather. It would start as a soft rain and then work its way into a hard rain and then quit. And you would think, yeah! alright! It's done for the day. But no. In a few minutes it would start the cycle all over again. It was threatening to get in the way of our plans. You see, the reason that we left Unionville so early this morning was that we were trying to make a dash to Greenwood Lake, NY. We had sent our bounce box to the Post Office. Post Offices have hours that are a bit short for hikers. If we didn't make it to the Post Office by 5pm we would only have until 12 noon on the next day, Saturday. Which wouldn't be quite enough time for us to get everything done and then sending it back out.The harder it rained, the wetter and colder we got, despite our best efforts. We have been hypothermic before and so we know how quick a person can go down from it. It wasn't an experience that we wanted to repeat. So when we got to a possible bail out road, we stood there and hashed it out for a while. We could hitch at Country Road 517 into Vernon, NJ. There is a church there called St. Thomas Episcopal that allows hikers some respite. We got warmed up and reconnoitered about what to do. After hashing it out a while, we decided to go for it.Along the way, we bumped into a young guy that was section hiking southbound. He was wearing no rain jacket and not even a shirt! He had suspenders on, shorts and the usual foot gear. I'm feeling like a popsicle and this kid is walking around in shorts and no shirt! I asked Will, how can he do that?!   Will just said the power of youth. Indeed. We had some very rocky going later in this hike. Of course this slows you down and we were trying to push our pace as much as possible. To get to our goal and to try and stay warm. Our effort paid off because we made it to the Post Office with about a half hour to spare. Greenwood is a small resort town so our only feasible option for a motel was a place on the lake called the Linden. We had some difficulty getting ahold of the manager to see if they had any rooms available. They did, but without going into too much detail let me just say it was a very weird vibe here. If we had another option we would probably have taken it. But at least we were out of the rain and the room had heat. No laundry facilities and no laundromat in town. We took a shower and got cleaned up, hung our clothes about the room to dry and then went to the Chinese restaurant. It was very good by the way.   We really needed a phone to try and take care of our broken phone issue plus some other things but this place doesn't have them.But hey, we made it to the Post Office and we will sleep indoors out of the rain. Be happy with the things you have right? Or, wheee, wheee, whee! I gitta sleep in a bed! Catch you later! Road Runner