Day 54 - Friday, August 5

Linda

Woke up to a very foggy sky and bags wet from the dew. We left our personal park and walked down to Holmes and were at the Post Office at 7:00 just like we'd planned. Repackaged everything then had to wait for the store next door to open. The guy who runs the place overslept, so he didn't get there till 7:45. All we ended up buying was our old stand-bys, OJ and donuts for breakfast, because the store didn't carry anything else we needed. Started our official walking for the day at 8:15. We walked most of the day on roads, some gravel, but mostly paved.

This morning, as we were walking down Grape Hollow Road and a girl called out to us from her yard and asked us if we needed any water. That's the first time anyone has actually offered us water without us asking first. She filled our bottles, then gave us some iced tea, and we talked for a few minutes. Her family had a menagerie of cats, dogs, chickens, roosters, etc. It was a rather quirky looking place, but the people were very friendly. We went on in a little while and started across the Interstate and into a huge housing development where all the houses looked alike except for a few details. It reminded me of the novelty song from the 60's "...there's a red one, and a blue one, and a pink one and a yellow one, and they're all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same..." I can't remember the name or who sang it, but that pretty much summed up how it felt to walk through the neighborhood. The monotony was of this road walking was beginning to wear on us, and it has only just begun. We passed the time trying to point out differences in the houses to each other.

We were running low on water again just before the Taconic Parkway, so we stopped at a little cottage. Four guys lived there, and it was quite a hangout, complete with pool table, stone fireplace and cozy chairs everywhere. Too bad they were getting ready to leave, or they would've invited us to stay longer to talk and mooch. We did each lunch in their yard, though. After lunch we did our bit of mountain climbing for the day over Shenandoah Mountain. The trail was a welcome diversion from the roads, although a bit rocky and quite overgrown in spots. The only problems were we didn't know where we were for much of the time, due to a sadly lacking guidebook, and there was no water at all along the trail. By the time we crossed Highway 301 and headed back into Fahnestock State Park, we were in bad shape from the heat and lack of water.

We dragged ourselves on, hoping to get to the next shelter 7.5 miles away, but we stopped at the first brook we came to, 1.8 miles after the park. The water was hot and tasted rather strange, so we treated it just to be on the safe side, and fixed dinner. We were going to go on a ways after eating, but a guy who had a tarp set up near where we were eating came over and we started talking. He had just started hiking two days before and was feeling very bad. He said the only food he was carrying were three kinds of beans, which he was sprouting in his drinking water as he went along. That didn't sound like it would give him the energy he was going to need to keep hiking, but he seemed convinced it would work. He seemed to have done his homework on equipment, and was well covered in that area, but knew hardly anything about the trail. When 8:00 rolled around and we were still sitting there, we figured we'd just camp there and threw the bags on the ground. Even stopping early we made 20 miles for the day. Our destination for tomorrow was Graymoor Monastery which is just 10 miles away. Can hardly wait to be treated to the monk's hospitality. It's renowned among hiker's.

Ron

Left camp this morning around 7:00 and hiked to the Post Office to collect our mail and food. We picked up some extra stuff at the store for breakfasts and were headed down the trail by 8:00. The trail this morning was mostly on roads over several ridges. The hot dry roads make for hard walking. By noon we had covered 12 miles. We stopped at a house and got some water then sat out on the lawn and ate lunch. Sections of the trail in New York are routed right through housing developments. Linda and I find ourselves hiking along the streets comparing the different styles of houses. We didn't plan to hike the trail to do home comparisons but at least it helps pass the time.

The climb up Shenandoah Mountain was easy but the miles on the other side were hot dry and boring. Along here the trail traveled mostly on ridges with few ups or downs. The poor trail maintenance made travel some what less than speedy. A thunder storm passed us as we climbed another ridge, giving us a little water. On the plus side, the temperature was lowered for awhile. At least until the sun reappeared. All of the springs mentioned in the guide book were dry. When we got to Highway 301 there was no water so we kept on hiking.

A little later I started developing a blister on my foot that was slowing us down. I sat down for a while to fix my foot while Linda went ahead to find water. While she was gone I found a bag of dried apricots at an abandoned camp. I finally caught up with her at a brook quenching her thirst. The water was flowing from a pond (more like a swamp) and didn't taste good. However we were too thirsty to ignore the water. On reflection we probably should have used our water purification tablets, but they would have made the water taste even worse.

We collected a couple quarts and mixed the purification tablets with iced tea mix. The mix would at least kill the taste somewhat. We stayed around the water to fix dinner. As we were finishing dinner another hiker strolled in. He was on the second day of his planned hike. Unfortunately he didn't have his act together yet. His pack didn't fit, he wasn't in condition and worse yet, he was trying to hike by eating nothing but bean sprouts. He had bags of dried beans and he would put some in a special container to let them sprout. Linda and I were easily putting away four to six thousand calories a day and still hungry all the time. I don't believe he will make it vary far.

Since it was getting late we decided to stop for the night. Tomorrow will be a short day. We are going to the Graymoor Monastery. We have been getting reports of the place for the last couple of hundred miles and we definitely plan to check it out.

(20.3 Miles - 752.2 Total)