Palwing, NY to Vernon, NJ

Hello everyone,

This entry is coming to you from the top of New Jersey from a church hostel after a very soggy weekend. Last week we finished the New York section of the trail with it's rocky ups and downs, interstates and dry creekbeds. We crossed the Hudson River on a gigantic suspension bridge right at the foot of Bear Mtn. On one side of us there was a 50 ft drop to the river and on the other side was 60mph traffic zooming by- it was a bit unsettling for us woods people. We crossed the train tracks that come from NYC where a train on the weekends stops right on the trail. We even saw the big city two times from a couple of mountains. It was a very hazy cluster of pins sticking out of the horizon. That was about as close as we cared to be to the city.

The AT goes right through a zoo at the base of Bear Mtn (NY's highest point on the trail) and also a swimming pool full of splashing kids. It was really different to be surrounded by inner city kids all of a sudden. The mountains around Bear Mtn. are called the roller coaster section of the trail (probably better labeled a kiddie roller coaster by those who have seen southern Maine) because of the constant steep ups and downs. New York and New Jersey have been a lot rockier than we were expecting which we guess will be a good warm up for the eastern PA section.

We are now in Vernon, NJ, at a hostel the Episcopal church runs in their basement. It's extremely comfortable and has all the right amenities (laundry, shower, internet, tv/movies, etc). We got here on Friday night soaked from a day's worth of heavy rain. This was the first rain we had walked in since on top of Mt. Washington (we were getting spoiled!). The trash bag liners we had put inside our packs worked really well to keep all our stuff dry, but we ourselves were still soaked, muddy and cold when we got the warm church. Vernon is a nice little town with some fast food, grocery store and churches.

On Friday night we were getting stuff at the Burger King counter when a familiar voice from behind said "well, Bluebird and Buster!" This was Paddy-O, a trail angel we had met on our third day out in the middle of Maine's rainy wilderness on a small logging road. At that time he had been waiting for a northbounder to come from the other direction who he was driving to Katahdin. He was excited to see us (and we were too since he was one of the first people we'd seen at all in 3 days!) and he offered us all kinds of food from his truck which he keeps stocked for hikers he meets along the trail. We passed his food by (and regretted it later) and after a nice conversation went on. After 2 months we remembered us and had gathered from some northbounders where we were on the trail. This time when he offered us food from his trail magic-filled truck we gladly accepted.

Today is Monday morning and we're still in Vernon. Garrett and I both felt a little discouraged/a little sick on Saturday and the pouring rain didn't help much so we decided to stay for another day. The next day, Sunday, Garrett decided to go to Urgent Care because he wasn't feeling well. The doctor prescribed him a medication that is supposed to make him feel sicker for a day to two days and then everything will be ok. So we're waiting out some more rain while he gets to feeling better. The church has been very kind to us and has assured us we can stay as long as we need to until he feels better. We may head out around noon today if possible.

The New Jersey terrain looks so beautifully flat! We are aiming to move pretty fast once we get going again so we can meet my parents and brother near Carlilse on the 8th of September at which point Christopher (my brother) will hike on to Georgia with us.

Best wishes to everyone who is starting new fall routines this week. We can feel the cool autumn breezes beginning to blow.

bluebird and buster

Dalton, MA to Pawling, NY

Well, it's been a while since we have added a journal; we are already in New York!

Dalton was a great trail town, with two incredible hosts, Tom Levardi and Rob Wolf. We stayed one night with Rob at "The Birdcage," and are grateful there are people like him along the trail. As soon as we arrived we were treated like his own family, he took us in off the street, washed our clothes and let us use his bathroom to shower. We then sat around for the afternoon and visited with him, and the other hikers. At dinner time, we piled into his van and went out to eat at the Old Country Buffet. We met one hiker who had stayed with Rob for over three weeks. Leaving Dalton was tough the next morning, but we had plans to try to hike 20 mile days until we reached Falls Village, CT.

The day we left Dalton, we were scheduled to meet Anna's cousin Sara and her husband Allen with newborn baby Rachel Mae, in Lee, MA; an 18 mile walk from Dalton. Thanks to the gentle Massachusetts terrain, and a "perfect hitch" into town, we cruised into Lee around 3:00 and did some post office mail drop business. Sadly, neither of our boxes arrived in Lee in time, so we asked that the Post Office forward them to Falls Village. We bought food at the Price Chopper in town to substitute the mail drop.

It was great to see Sara & Allen with baby Rachel and Allen's parents! We conversed outside the Post Office in a town gazaebo, and afterword went to have pizza at the Arizona Pizza Co.

Once we got back on the trail, we immediatly crossed the Massachusetts Turnpike, and headed up into the hills out of Lee, 1.8 miles to an AMC controlled cabin at Upper Goose Pond. For being controlled by the AMC we liked this place a whole lot. The care-taker (Wayne) was very friendly and helpful, and the cabin was beautiful. The only downside was that there were no bunks available when we rolled into camp at 8:00 PM.

Beyond Upper Goose Cabin, Massachusetts was pretty bland, though we got back into some mountains and had some of the best views of the state in the last 10 miles or so, having gone over the state's 2nd highest mountain just before we crossed the border into Connecticut. Immediately upon entering Connecticut we climbed their highest point, Bear Mountain at the end of our day.

One of Anna's best college friends, Mary, and her family came to hike from Salisbury to the CT/NY border. They met us in Salisbury where we stopped early our first day in Connecticut to shower at an informal hostel run by PCT hiker "Neighbor Jay".

Mary and her family were extremely gracious to us, filling us with dinner at the Arizona Pizza Co. and various other eateries during their time with us. They hiked with us for 5 days, and met their goal of reaching the NY border. We are very thankful that Mary and her family came to hike with us, and thoroughly enjoyed hiking and camping with them.

We've got to get going, the library is closing...New pictures are up on Web-Shots.
Thanks for reading, we'll update again soon.

Buster and Bluebird

Rutland, VT to Dalton, MA

We've just stopped into Dalton MA for the afternoon. We've heard from just about every northbounder we've passed that we should stop in Dalton and take the opportunity to meet one of two really nice men who let hikers stay in their houses for free. We are going to be staying with Rob at "The Birdcage."

We are SO happy to be in a new state! So far the trails have been beautiful in Mass. We hiked over Greylock, MA's highest peak, yesterday. We've been hiking 19-21 mile days through southern VT and into MA and have been feeling really great. VT was special to us for two reasons besides beautiful trails: free lodging at all places and we had to hike in no rain! (we stayed at the Twelve Tribes religious community in Rutland and with a nice guy named Chris in Bennington) We had to take a quick trip into Manchester VT one day to buy a replacement filter (ours had been used for 3 years and was getting too dirty to use). We just needed to run into town and back out. We waited for a while for a hitch on the road on what was the hottest day so far. Finally a little brand new Audi picked us up. the woman was so nice to us and even gave us a $50 dollar bill to buy lunch and dinner in town! We were shocked! So we ate well in that town and bought a new filter with that money!

Since we went to Sidney for a few days off we've been hiking with a new crowd, Easy Rider, Stretch and few others. We heard that only 70 southbound hikers started this year, a record low. I think we're somewhere in the middle of that group.

It was difficult for the first few days to get back into hiking after we came back from Garrett's house. Our morale was down and we were still feeling really tired (even more so than before we had left the trail). But after a 4-mile day and an afternoon off by a gorgous stream (Big Branch River, VT) where we swam and cooked dinner on the rocks, we were ready to start really hiking again. We hope to be in NY by this time next week.

The time is about to expire on my library computer, so I'll sign off. Hope everyone is well! We love to hear from you.

Buster and Bluebird