finally - another one!

Hi all, sorry it’s been so long between postings. It was hard to find WiFi after I’d gotten this thing written, and then I was having problem getting my computer to connect.
When I last wrote I was finishing up the 49ers game, which they won, fortunately, in the last 2 minutes (and again this week!). So that put me in a better mood as I left Vermont for the Adirondacks. While hiking in Vermont, a woman I met told me that if I got to Keene Valley, NY (where I intended to hike) to stop at a particular store called The Mountaineer. Good advice, because when I stopped at the store the owner told me everything I needed to know – where to access the Giant Mountain trails (recommended by a couple I met in Glacier), which of the four trails to take (it was raining and some were more slippery than others), how long they were, where to camp for the night (free!), and a trail to hike the next morning before I left the Adirondacks. Everything went wonderfully – the initial hike was a bit less than fun because of the tactical nature of dealing with the slippery rocks, but it definitely got my heart rate going – 3375 foot climb in just 3.6 miles. I got up and back in just under 4 hours and found the camping spot in the wilderness area he’d recommended. There was only one other set of people there, and they were quite far away, so it was nice and quiet. It even stopped raining, although it started again around 3am. Fortunately the wind came up after that and dried out the tent before I had to break camp. The second hike was a lot more fun – a 6.7 mile loop so almost the same distance, a little less elevation gain (although I bagged two peaks!) but most importantly, dry! I managed to get done by noon and spent a few minutes sitting outside the closed library using their WiFi to check my email and validate my next route.
I wanted to get down to the Woodstock Festival site, which was too far to cover in one day since I was getting a late start driving. So I picked a scenic route through the Adirondacks and down to the Catskills. I went through Lake Placid (cool looking ski jumps!) and passed through some familiar-looking place names. Someone was having some fun: I went from Amsterdam to Florida in just 5 minutes. Spotted a sign for the Little Pond campground off of the main road I was taking – it was quite far off the main route. And verrrry cold – the campground attendant told me the next morning that it had gotten down to 35 degrees. (Can’t wait for the REAL Florida!) I checked the map before I left the next morning (and having a 5-mile hike and a shower) and was able to pick a different route through the Catskills to get to Woodstock. (I have to be able to tell my grandchildren that I went to Woodstock! They don’t have to know it was 38 years late…) It turned out to be actually due south of me and not too far. I wasn’t able to get on the grounds per se, since they’ve build a new concert venue on the site and there is security. But I got some pictures and soaked up some vibe. Now I’m feelin’ groovy.
At this point I discovered that I’d neglected to get a map of Pennsylvania, which was my next destination south. I could see that Scranton was not that far from Woodstock, so I swallowed my pride and jumped on the interstate so I could locate and get to AAA before it closed at 5pm. Just barely made it, and picked up some other maps and camp books I was missing. I don’t know what I was thinking…
About 30 miles south of Scranton there’s a pretty large state park called Hickory Run, so I headed down there. Had a very nice camp site (albeit with ice-cold shower) for just $14. As I’ve noted in previous postings, I’m a sucker for marketing hype, so naturally I just HAD to do the hike there called “Shades of Death”. The only thing deadly about it, though, was the poorly marked trail – I took three wrong turns at the beginning before I settled into the main trail. I guess it’s fair to say I could have died out there, wandering the wilds of Pennsylvania.
South of the state park is a town called Jim Thorpe, which I guess is where he grew up, so I had to stop there, being a sports fan and all. I used the library to find my way down to the area in Amish country I wanted to visit, and while there I took the opportunity to talk to a couple of foster kids from a local group home. They were new to the area so I told them to read up on Jim Thorpe, since he came from a pretty lousy family background and made something of himself…
On a more sobering note, some of you may remember last year’s story of the madman who took some Amish girls hostage in a schoolhouse and killed a few of them and himself. The important part of the story was the forgiveness of the Amish. Within hours of the shootings, a group of them were at the gunman’s house comforting his surviving wife and children – who weren’t even Amish; they were complete strangers. That amazing action has had a big impact on me - I’ve thought about it a lot since it happened and wanted to visit the area to make sure I remember it forever. Kind of a personal thing, so I won’t say a lot about what I did down there, but I feel better now…
South of Amish country I rolled on down to Delaware and made it all the way down to Rehoboth Beach on the south seashore before dark. (OK, it’s a pretty small state…) The wind off of the ocean was quite warm, about 75 degrees, so I figured something was up weather-wise. Sure enough, it started raining about 10:30pm and dumped what seemed like about 3 inches by morning. That’s a lot for this California boy! Naturally it stopped just AFTER I’d broken camp with my wet tent and all. I did get some good walking time out on the seashore, one of my favorite activities, before heading south and west. Through Maryland’s eastern shore (including the ‘other end’ of hwy 50, which starts in Sacramento), across the Chesapeake Bridge / Tunnel to Norfolk, and all the way west across Virginia, finally stopping at a state park called Douthat near the West Virginia border. Western Virginia is astoundingly beautiful – mountainous and a tree canopy so thick that I’m sure you can’t see the ground from the air, and trees themselves are big, not the spindly forest I was seeing in the northeast. They’re mostly deciduous, so I’m told that October is a spectacular sight from afar. I wonder what it looks like in February with everything bare.
I spent the next morning hiking (and dodging mountain bikers, popular at Douthat) up to the top of the ridge and back down, a healthy 10-mile loop, and then followed that up with a few more miles at the New River bridge in West Virginia. (This particular bridge is the tallest in North America at about 850 feet above the river.) Even though it was 4pm by the time I left the New River, I had the idea that I could make it all the way to Asheville, North Carolina in time to check into a motel and watch Sunday night football. It took a lot longer than I expected and I was still 100 miles away when the game started at 8pm local time – and it was getting dark. So I gave up on expecting to watch it and started looking for a camp spot instead. None were found nearby, and I was on such a lonely stretch of road that I decided to check in at “Chateau Prius”. Wise choice – I pulled off the side of the road, found the game on the radio, and didn’t see a single car between the end of the game (around 11:30pm) and 6am. In hindsight I could have pitched the tent right there by the roadside and slept more comfortably!
After awakening, I verified my position on the map and decided to head in the ‘wrong’ direction just so I could drive into Tennessee. (I was in North Carolina and found I was only about 15 miles from the Tennessee border.) Turned out there was a section of the Appalachian Trail in that area of Tennessee, so I stopped and did 5 miles out and 5 miles back. So now I’ve been on the trail 3 times and still have about 2000 miles to go! I met a couple of guys from Oklahoma who had started at the terminus in Maine at the end of May and were hoping to reach the other end in Georgia in another 3 weeks – they were ‘only’ 420 miles away. The thought is growing that someday I’d like to do that…
I drove almost 400 miles from Tennessee through North Carolina and all the way through South Carolina before settling tonight into a well-deserved motel room in Savannah, Georgia. I’m going to have the long-delayed 30K mile maintenance done on my car here in town and will look for a way to post this blog as I wait. The car deserves some professional pampering as I’ve just passed the 10,000 mile mark on this trip yesterday.