out of water

Episode 41 on YouTube

waddaya have to say #379?

Episode 40 on YouTube

Our tent smells like dead fish guts! Due to the events of the past few days, we haven’t needed to set up our tent for the past 5 nights, and each of those nights, it has continued to sit in it’s little bag attached to the bottom of my pack, growing nastier and nastier from the water that was still on it when we put it away back in Connecticut! Thankfully, our normal hiker stench has prepared us for just such occasions, and our noses are able to tune it out, at least for the most part! We woke up this morning after a great night of rest @ The Birdcage and walked down to the general store 2 blocks away for a donut and a breakfast sandwich. We came back a little before our departure time of 8:30 and finished packing all of our gear. Everyone who needed a ride north to get back on the trail assembled around the minivan in the driveway, and promptly proceeded to bend ourselves into Tetris pieces in order to get all 11 people, plus backpacks, into a Ford Windstar! Fortunately, Stubbs had the foresight yesterday to buy a little bottle of Febreze for our packs, so at least it smelled like a mix of nasty hiker and a little bit of pretty! After Rob made a couple stops in town, with all of us still crammed inside and the Febreze rapidly fading away, we made it to Cheshire, got a big bear hug from the most hospitable man in Dalton, MA as I tried to wake my legs up from the long van ride, and headed up the trail. We left town with Sunny and Share, along with Blues Traveler. Bones, MudBug, GinKen, Ned, and Bone’s friend Eliza all headed 14 miles north to North Adams and planned to walk south on another slackpack. We passed them @ the top of Mt. Greylock after a 7.6 mile climb of over 2500 ft. It was by far our biggest climb in the last 600 miles. Our shoes are working well for both of us and we are thankful that we switched. The blister issues seem to have gone away after our day off and we are expectant that we’ll have smooth sailing for the remainder of the trip (relatively speaking of course, considering the toughest and final 20% of our trip still remains!). We stopped for lunch on top, and I pulled out the Frisbee I bought yesterday that Stubbs said I would never use and played for a few minutes with Bones, GinKen, and MudBug (In you face, Wife!). The weather was beautiful today, and the breeze almost made it a bit chilly on top of the mountain. From the observation deck facing east, you could just make out the faint silhouette of the White Mountains, the most famous and dangerous stretch of hiking along the entire AT. It was an awesome feeling to know we are within a couple weeks of reaching that point! It was also incredible to know that once we reached the summit, we had less than 600 miles to finish our journey! Stubbs and I headed down off the summit, with Blues Traveler traveling closely behind us, and started on our 2800 ft descent into North Adams. The trip down was steep and muddy, which makes for a poor combination! We only stopped once for a 15 minute break and finished the 6.3 miles down by around 5:30, I think. From the junction of the trail and MA 2, it was .3 miles to the Stop N Shop grocery store where we needed to resupply, and we arrived just as Sunny and Share were sitting down out front and diving into a box of cereal like George Foreman on a donut! We left our packs with them and headed in to get 3 days worth of food, as well as a footlong deli sub and a fresh salad to share for dinner. We sat out front with our new friends and enjoyed our food and their good company. They left a few minutes before us and we headed out shortly before 7 to finish our final 1.6 for the day. That final stretch involved a 700 ft climb, but it was along a swollen mountain brook that had incredible cascades so we enjoyed ourselves immensely. Once @ the Sherman Brook campsite, we dropped our stuff next to Blues and headed down to the water to get cleaned up a bit. The rest of the night included starting a fire with another hiker we met today named Free Fall, who actually started the same day that we did from Springer and we didn’t meet until now, and dumping copious amounts of liquor on the fire from the bottle that had been left behind no doubt by some weekenders who went home thinking they had an awesome time but were so drunk they don’t remember anything! We also called Forecast and Aggie and got the details of the day or so we are spending with their family and them this weekend. After that we talked with Whisper, who is still 60 miles ahead, and let her know the sad news that unless she started taking some days off, we likely wouldn’t catch her before this crazy adventure is over. We really do want to finish with her, but not to the detriment of us enjoying the last part of the experience and rushing through it. So, we’re hoping she’ll slow down. Stubbs is sleeping quietly beside me and I have to stop and listen to her breathing every now and again to make sure she hasn’t been overcome by the pungent odor of rotting bass carcass wafting out of our mesh framed house! Since she isn’t reading this, I’ll take the chance to say how incredible she is! There aren’t very many people who would live an adventure like this, and only about 25% of them are women. She’s been right beside me this entire time and, even though she gets tired and sore and cranky about all the mud, she still manages to brighten my day and remains the most beautiful woman in the world, even without makeup for over 4 months! When we get back home, make sure you tell her how much more impressive she was than me on this trip. I know most of you that know us both would readily agree with that statement anyway, but she really has been incredible! Okay, my eyes are starting to well up so I’ll stop all the mushy garbage. We both hope your day was a great one, and if there is someone incredible in your life, make sure you tell them after you read this. God bless and keep the comments flowing.

an extra limb?

Episode 39 on YouTube

After a calculating conversation the night before about how far we needed to be by what date we needed to be there, we opted to take a day @ the Birdcage in order for some blisters to heal and the rain swollen creeks to at least recede a little bit. Our day was nice and easy and spent with friends, both old and new (if by old we mean ones that we’ve known for longer than 2 months!).

We sat @ the house for an hour or so watching the news and the weather, and then headed over to the mall (compliments of a ride from Mountain Squid) to look for some new shoes for Sunny and maybe to see a couple matinee movies. They didn’t have his shoes and the movie theater was closed for technical difficulties, so we got a ride over to Barnes and Noble and just sat and read for a while and chatted with Sunny and Share. They are an awesome couple with very similar views about how we as followers of Christ should interact with and make a difference in this world. Our ride came @ 2:30 and we headed over to the library to check the website and blog for the day before. Afterward, we walked back to the house, watched as almost 25 hikers came in for the evening, set a place to meet Forecast and Aggie, and headed over to Jacob’s Tavern for dinner with Sunny, Share, Blues Traveler, Forecast, Aggie, and a new guy called The Breeze. Dinner was great and the company was even better. We walked back to the house, watched part of a Red Sox game, and headed off to bed shortly after 10. We leave from Cheshire tomorrow morning and should be close to the VT border by the end of the day. Drop us a comment if you get the chance. Peace and love.

you ate what?

Episode 38 on YouTube

Back before I joined the world of the technology savvy and actually broke down and bought myself and iPod, if I wanted to listen to any or my favorite songs at my leisure, I had to do it on something known as a CD (those little round shiny things that hold music and would make a great signaling device if you ever found yourself lost in the Canadian wilderness and needed to make sure a plane flying overhead would know that you were indeed struggling through the dense forest below them…feeling a little tangental today!). For my birthday 4 or 5 years ago, I asked my beautiful wife, Stubbs, for a CD of one of my favorite artists containing one of my favorite songs of all time. The artist was Gary Allen and the song was called “Songs About Rain.” Not only is it one of the more well written songs in the history of country music genre, it is also the perfect soundtrack to our day yesterday. It started shortly after midnight when we were jolted awake by a bolt of lightning and a subsequent crash of thunder that was enough to jar the teeth off and entire ward of nursing home bedside tables! From there, the next 3 hours were simply a repeat of those 2 or 3 seconds. In all, we probably got about 2 inches of rain and it helped to cool down the sweltering night at least to the point of bearable. We woke up a little groggy from having our sleep interrupted so many times and headed off toward Dalton, MA around 8:30. The 3 miles to town were wet, muddy and slippery, but once we arrived, we knew just what to do. We checked out our map for the nearest place serving breakfast and walked to mile or so across town to enjoy it. Stubbs had cinnamon swirl French toast, homefries, an English muffin and a vegetable omelet (I know, she eats like a dude, a really fat dude!) I actually went a little smaller in my choice and had an everything omelet, home fries, and 2 pancakes. We washed that all down with some coffee and spent a few moments living the good life. As we were getting ready to leave, we were stopped by a guy named Tom who opens up his house in town for hikers to sleep on the floor (or a bed if it is available) and get a shower. He offered us a place and we thought seriously about accepting but headed on toward the north end of town. As we were walking down a quiet little side street, we heard the unmistakable sound of a light blue, late 90’s minivan pulling up behind us. We turned and saw another man leaning out the window and asking us where we were headed. We told the man, named Rob, we were headed north out of town and he offered us a ride to the trail. We accepted, and soon found out we were in the back of the minivan belonging to a trail legend. Turns out Rob runs The Birdcage, another hostel here in town that caters to hikers and offers a bed to sleep on, a place to shower, and laundry service, all at no charge. He also offered to take us north to Cheshire (about 10 miles) and let us walk back south to stay at his place. We thought for about 2 seconds and promptly agreed. After a quick stop @ his place to drop off our packs and get a smaller version with just our stuff for the day, we headed down a bumpy unpaved road and soon found ourselves facing south and heading back up a mountain toward Dalton. After 20 minutes or so,  just as we stopped to put some band-aids on our ailing feet, we heard the distant rumble of thunder, headed our way. Within about 30 minutes, we were once again on the receiving end of a late July shower that would have given ole Gary Allen an irresistible urge to start crooning again! For the next 3 hours or so we got rained on and passed all of our friends heading north we had jumped ahead of by taking the ride north with Rob. Even though it was a pretty bad shower, we saw pictures later on in the evening from some other hikers south of us who had been caught in the same storm that produced hail almost as big as golf balls! Once we got back to the Birdcage, we got a shower, did our laundry, and waited around for everyone else to get ready for dinner. We ended up @ Applebee’s with Sunny, Share, Buffet, and Mooch. It was a great time hanging out with two other married couples and the food wasn’t bad either. Once we got back to the house, we made a couple phone calls to other trail buddies who are finally catching up to us and headed to bed a little after 10:30. I am writing to you now @ the Dalton Public Library on Monday and will fill you in on our day today later this evening. Hope no one got hailed on too badly @ your house and we’ll give you some more details this evening! Take care and God bless.