Day 44 - Tuesday, July 26

Linda

We woke up to a chilly but clear and sunny day, and we started hiking at 7:00. The cooler weather made hiking pleasant. The first shelter was much further than the 3.5 miles the sign said, so it took longer to get there. Crossed a couple small hills before heading up to Glastenbury Mountain. That turned out to be a much easier climb than I expected and we were at the tower on top in no time. The tower afforded a beautiful view of the area, but it was too windy to stay up there very long. We went down the rest of the way to the shelter and had an early lunch.

While there, we also came to a crossroads on scheduling. Ronald has been relentless in his constant pushing to move on and make miles, and even when we do hike a short day, or take an extended break, he feels guilty about it afterward. It's really been causing a lot of tension because we seem to have substantial philosophical differences. Hiking the AT has been a dream of his since he was a kid, and I thought he would want to savor it more, not just blast through the miles strictly for the sake of getting to the end. If that were the case, he could have just driven or taken the bus - it would be a lot quicker. He sees my wanting to linger at certain places as a lack of commitment or responsibility. It's not that at all, or at least I don't feel that way. I feel the same sense of commitment to completing the trail, it's just more important to me to savor a moment. It's probably just as much a basic gender difference between men and women. Goes back to the same reason that women can take pleasure at spending an afternoon strolling along looking in shop windows, while men will just dash into a store, buy what they need and leave.

In fairness to Ronald, he spent months planning and preparing for this trip, and I guess he feels it's his responsibility to make sure we actually make it to Georgia. We came to an agreement that I would try to be more aware of our schedule and help in planning to make sure we arrive at our pre-determined mail stop locations within a reasonable time. Ronald agreed to back off a bit on his constant reminders of how far "behind" we were after Maine, and relax and enjoy himself more.

We decided that since we were so low on food, we'd try to make a run into Bennington to get groceries, then get back on the trail. We hadn't originally planned on going into Bennington at all, so that meant we had to blitz the 10+ miles down to Route 9, over the relocation we'd been hearing so much about. We almost ran most of the way down, and were at the road by 3:45. I'm still not sure how we managed that. On the way down we passed group after group of kids going up. For them it was a long uphill haul, so I don't know how most of them could possibly make it before dark, but as usual, we were glad we wouldn't be in the same area.

At the highway, we quickly got a ride into town with a guy in a dump truck. He told us the weather was supposed to hold all week. Hope so, it's been beautiful today. He dropped us off at a big P&C, and we immediately ran into a young woman who lives in town, and had just gotten back from doing the first 800 miles of the AT with her husband. They started in Georgia in May, but pooped out in Virginia. She offered to let us put the tent in her yard. We thanked her for the offer, but we said we had to get back out this afternoon. Then we went wild in the store picking up food. Ronald has been craving French toast for days, so on top of the regular stuff, we got eggs, bread, syrup and a big piece of ham to cook for dinner. Repackaged the food on the curb outside the store, then ate a pint of maple nut ice cream. Yummm!

Back on the highway we had some trouble getting a ride, but a guy we passed coming out of a store hollered over and asked if we needed a ride. He wasn't even going our way, he just took us to be helpful. We thought that was very neighborly. At the trail, we struggled to put on our food laden packs, then walked up the hill about a mile to a very pretty campsite. We pitched the tent, then proceeded to gorge on ham and French toast until it was too dark to cook anymore. What a feast! Beats the heck out of instant mashed potatoes and pressed meat bars. We'll be eternally grateful when we've eaten the last of those. Went to bed stuffed but content. Did a great 20 miles for the day - our first 20 mile day.

Ron

Dawn broke clear and cold this morning. One of the other LDH'ers awoke early and started a fire. That didn't do much to get us moving. We finally pulled everything together, ate breakfast and were hiking by 7:00. The first 3.5 miles took far too long at our pace to be the actual distance. We figured them to be more like five miles. That seems to be the general feeling of the others hiking with us. After the first lean-to, Linda and I got into another argument over mileage, time, breaks etc. I wanted to break less so we could do our mileage and get to those places she wanted to go (actually I wanted to go). She wanted me to stop always talking about mileage and schedules. I agreed, if she would take more responsibility in setting up the schedule.

We continued on to Glastenbury shelter and decided to eat a quick lunch and push on fast to see if we could get down to Route 9 early enough to get into Bennington. We made the ten miles to the highway in 3.5 hours. That's walking! We hitched a ride into town and picked up some food to help our sagging lunches and breakfast. As a treat we polished off a pint of ice cream after we finished repackaging our supplies. Leaving town we picked up a ride from a local guy who had nothing better to do. I got really pissed at myself for losing $5 from my shirt pocket.

Back on the trail we hiked another 2 miles to make it our first twenty mile day. For supper we bought six eggs a half pound of ham and a loaf of bread. We fried the ham and had French toast with maple syrup. It's nice to be able to walk twenty miles and still go into town and pick up supplies. We are really in good shape. Our endurance is growing daily. It feels good to finally make good mileage.

(20 Miles - 561.8 Total)