Miles today: 19.8
Total miles: 706
Today I was planning to meet my sister and her girls for lunch in Falls Village CT, about 12 miles from the shelter. The boys wanted to go into the first town the trail crossed, Salisbury, about four miles from the shelter. So I said bye to them as they went to get food and I did my best to get to Falls Village by 1.
The rolling hills and trail were easy and I made it to Water St in Falls village by a little after 12. Since we planned to meet at 1, I walked another 2.5 miles to a different road crossing. Once there, Lisa actually drove right by me walking along the road. She stopped and picked me up and her and the girls did a great job tolerating my I’m sure unpleasant hiker smell.
We got lunch at a little cafe, one of the only businesses in the tiny town. It was so great to see them and hear about what they’ve been up to and tell them stories of the trail. I’m so lucky to have family that will drive hours out of their way just for a quick lunch. It was a definite morale boost and I’m so grateful for it.
After lunch, they dropped me off at the trail and I quickly ran into a couple I’d met way back in Rutland VT rigt before I had to get off trail for my knee. It was good to see them, but I won’t be hiking with them as they are going very slow in order to coordinate timing for a train to a wedding they are going to in a week.
I got a text from Cool blue that him and Wolf bird are in Kent already. What?! That’s at least two days hiking away, close to the NY border. He said while they were in Salisbury, a woman whose husband is a vet on NYC, offered to drive them and Mabel to Kent and give Mabel free surgery to fix a ruptured cyst on her leg. Mabel’s leg looked pretty painful and gross so I’m glad she’s getting it fixed. But this meant the boys were done hiking until after they get back from Chicago. So I won’t get to see them before they leave, but oh well. I’m sure once they are back in a week and a half they’ll catch up to me quickly.
The rest of my hiking day was uneventful. I got to the shelter to find Blondie (who didn’t go with wolf bird and cool blue) and Grub. grub is another Southbounder I haven’t seen since Rangeley Maine. It was so great to see him–it’s crazy how even though I didn’t hike very much with him seeing him felt like a reunion of long lost friends. He actually just got back on trail after ten days off sick with giardia. He skipped a section of Vermont and MA so he wouldn’t be super far behind. Later in the evening the three of us were joined by a flip flop hiker named Sun Driven. He was quite the talker and as such I learned a lot about his life. He told some funny stories but did keep me up a bit past my bedtime with all his talking. It was worth it for the entertainment factor though.
A good part of today was discovering the trail is now easy enough and I hike fast enough to be able to take a couple hour lunch break and still put in a twenty mile day before 6 pm.