Blood, Sweat & Deet

Looking back on the state of Connecticut I realized I have shed blood, sweat & gone through 6 bottles of full strength deet bug spray.

 What should have been a fall to end my hike ended out just being a elbow scrape. I caught the toe of my shoe while coming down a steep hill & was about to land on my face on top  of some sharp rocks, but I remembered my training of how to fall & did a quick twist and landed on my backpack. I knew it looked bad so I quickly said, I'm ok, I'm ok. Not only to assure PaddyCakes but myself also. The fall was not over though. The hill was so steep that I could not stop myself from rolling down the hill for a second. With the help of a tree & my elbow I was able to finally come to a stop. This was the scariest fall yet. Thank goodness for my trusty backpack!

One of the best things about Connecticut was how much water there was. For the past five days we have gone swimming in either a river, lake or stream. 

Here are some views from the tops of some climbs we had. I can tell the terrain is changing a bit. We don't have as many rocks anymore and starting to do some climbing again. 

We only caught a warm afternoon shower outside of Great Falls. We decided to go into town where there was a Cafe owner who let us tent in his yard. He was a very interesting man who made traditional english style breakfast for us. His wife Annie said Great Falls was the second smallest town in the second smallest state. I even ran into a thru hiker that went to Madison Central High School with Peyton. His name was " Porch". I forgot his real name, will have to ask him when I run into him next & report back. That was cool talking about home with someone from home. 

Great Falls had some falls as we hiked out of town that were very pretty. Unfortunately this spot also had the worst the mosquitos of this entire trip so none of us even cared about the falls. We cared more about applying deet and trying to out run them. 

I did get two quick photos of the falls in between bug spraying.  

A pretty view of some of the climbs to come. 

PaddyCakes with his bug net on next to a standing rock. 

Spanky & I rocking our bug wear throwing up gang signs. 

PaddyCakes enjoying a bug free snack. 

Ever since New Jersey we have seen tons of these rock walls just randomly in the woods. They are so beautiful & I love thinking about how old they are and the time spent to erect them. 

The Daylillies have been in full bloom. 

Some rocks steps up to a climb. 

View from Bear Mountain. 

Here is a picture of some waterfalls back to back right before we left Connecticut. I have really enjoyed this state. The people have been so friendly, the scenery has been georgous & apart from the mosquitos it has been a real enjoyable hike. 

But as always this state too must end! So we say goodbye to Connecticut and hello to Massachusetts.   

Our first camp site in the state had too many rocks so we had to rig up our tarp tents on these platform. 

Our final climb for the day was called Everett Mountain. It had a great view of the state below. 

PaddyCakes climbing up the mountain. 

What a great view!

Another rock wall. This one was covered in moss and right on the trail. 

We haven't stayed in a hotel in three states so we are splurging & treating ourselves. That isn't the only thing our group has gone without. Spanky hasn't done laundry in three states & Sleeping Beauty has gone three states without brushing his teeth!!!!  Sometimes I can't believe I'm hiking with these boys. We are all cleaned & brushed now in Great Barrington, MA. 

-Puddin'

On to Conneticut!!

Crossing the Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson River was HOT! We are so used to our trees providing shade for us. Lately the shade and swimming have been the only thing making hiking in the 90 + degree temperatures bearable. 

We walked into Fort Montgomery for breakfast and to get the package that my mom sent us and some happies that Puddin's mom sent. We wasted a bit of time there because we knew the trail went through a little walk through zoo that we wanted to check out and it opened at 10am. What we didn't know about was..........

THE POOL!!!!!! For some reason this amazing pool just outside of the zoo is not in our guide books. We turned a corner and saw this beautiful blue cool cleanish body of water screaming for us to come play in it. There was no way we could resist and one of the best things was that it was free to through hikers! We must be doing something right because this was exactly what we needed on this hot day. Spanky, Sleeping Beauty, Puddin and myself all stripped off our sweaty clothes and jumped right in (wearing the appropriate swimming attire as it was a public pool. We are hiker trash, but not that trashy). We had breath holding competitions, underwater swimming contests. Saw who could do the most underwater flips. It felt good to regress back to our 9 year old childish ways. 

When we were good and waterlogged we decided that it was time to get hiking again so we showered off the chlorine and started walking through the zoo. 

A statue of Walt Whitman

His poem "Song of the Open Road" was mentioned and written in stone by the statue. It was very inspirational for us and amazing how much it related to the way we feel on this hike. I you would like to check it out you can go to http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/song-of-the-open-road-2/ 

Next came the animals. 

Some cinnamon colored black bears were the highlight of the zoo. We also liked the porcupine and a fox that only had three legs.

A view of the Bear Mountain Bridge spanning over the Hudson River.

Puddin crossing the bridge.

A view of down below

Next we had a big climb up. We were dripping sweat, but with the mountains ahead we are excited about getting a chance to work our legs out a bit again. 

This part of the state and beyond had many rock walls. This one was nice because it was on both sides of the path giving us our own little bridge. 

This is the largest oak tree on the AT. Sleeping Beauty and I couldn't even come close to reaching around it.

Puddin was happy to have made it to this milestone.

We stopped for an evening at the RPH Shelter. It was a great shelter, but the bugs were bad enough that we stayed within the safety of the bug netting in our tent. 

The next morning we were planning on hiking 20 miles. 3 miles into that we walked across a bridge that told us there was a free breakfast at the house just up the road. Of course we had to go check it out. It turned out to be the house of Amy and Bill (Gascious) a former through hiker from '99. They made us waffles and coffee. Bill invited us to partake in his favorite pastime of SKYDIVING! I was in, but Puddin wasn't so sure because of how much it cost. They told us they would slack pack us and we could hike back, stay at there place for the night, and we could decide while we were hiking. So they drove myself, Sleeping Beauty, and Puddin 17 miles north where we were planning on stopping for the night and we hiked south for the day.  After enough of my puppy dog face Puddin gave in and decided that it would be a good idea to go skydiving too.  I knew she wanted to the whole time, but she is the sensible one in this family. 

Sleeping Beauty cooling off in the river

I had to join him

We made it back to Bill and Amy's house in record time, but along the way felt some sprinkles.  We were wondering if, with the weather, would it be possible to still sky dive.  When we got back our fears were confirmed.  The system coming in wouldn't allow us to go jump out of a plane.  We weren't that bummed though, we will have more opportunities in the future and its probably for the best with our money situation being as tight as it is right now. 

Puddin loving life.  It is nice to have a clean soft place to lay down. 

While staying at Bill and Amy's we got to meet Buddy Backpacker and his parents Andrea and Dion.  They are through hiking the trail and when Buddy finishes he will break the record for the youngest person ever to through hike the AT.  Oh yeah, he is only 5!!!!!!! You can check out their adventures at buddybackpacker.com

Buddy and Puddin hit it off immediately.  That kid has a ton of energy. 

Buddy, Andrea and Dion

All of us with Bill and Amy

After a night of great company and burgers and spiraled weenies we got some sleep and it was back to the trail.  Our next big step, crossing into Connecticut!!

Of course with it being hot our group had to go swimming.  Luckily we passed by a river with a perfect swimming spot.  It was a nice way to spend the hot part of the day. 

Our swimming hole

Crossing over the river

More coniferous trees now

New York has been really good to us.  The people have been wonderful, we have appreciated the terrain. It is nice to have the views again.  There have been plenty of places to swim, and the rocks are finally starting to let up.  We have decided that New York is in a tie for our favorite state along with Tennessee.  We are now in Kent, CT and looking forward to the upcoming states.  Connecticut is only about 50 miles long so we will be in Massachusetts soon then on to Vermont. 

A look back at New York