While hiking in Vermont on a trail near Killington, Suzanne and I saw one hiker with a cucumber in his belt…
rather odd, we thought. Then we saw this cooler with freebies of veggies and
cold drinks that some good-hearted souls had left for thru-hikers. Gifts
like this are called “trail magic”, and are greatly appreciated by perpetually hungry long-distance hikers who average 15-20 miles per day over often very rough
terrain. Dory and Mucosa, the benefactors of this trail magic, must be very thoughtful and kind-hearted folks.
I
was almost able to grant some trail magic myself the other day. I was
driving down the road with Rudy and Gretchen in the back seat when I saw
a young male hiker with a big backpack hitch-hiking in the vicinity of
the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I stopped
to give him a lift, and in the rear-view mirror I saw him signal his
dog to come up out of the weeds. It was a 60 lb pit bull! As he walked
up, I said, "Sorry, but I have two small dogs in here that would go
berserk if your dog got in." It was an "Isn't that interesting" moment.
Congratulations to
Colette Sasina, who correctly identified the Noble County Courthouse, in
Albion, Indiana, in the July 22 blog photo quiz. Colette wins lunch for two with Der
Blogmeister and His Lovely Bride upon their return to The Villages. Well done, Colette, and you don't even live in Indiana!
The next contest
involves two types of flora; this beautiful orange variety was sighted by our Trail Slogger
in Vermont, on the Long Trail. The mushrooms(?) were seen on the Mount Martha Trail in New Hampshire. What are they?
My Lovely Bride loves
waterfalls, so of course when I saw Thundering Falls on the map near Killington,
I steered our trusty car that way and we hit the trail. It was a pleasant hike
in, much less rocky and muddy than the Long Trail had been. This made MLB very
happy, and as the saying goes, “Happy
Wife, Happy Life”…
What would not have
made MLB happy was this shelter on the Appalachian Trail. We were day-hiking
this section, so sharing the shelter with 6 smelly, sweaty guys and maybe a porcupine and some mice was not in the cards. I’m not
saying that her idea of
roughing it is the Hilton, but these accommodations were definitely not
“on her
programme”, as the Brits say. (The piece of line hanging down next to
Suzanne is for hanging your food bag out of reach of rodents and small
mammals.)
Our time in Vermont
at an end, I dropped Suzanne off at the airport in Manchester, New Hampshire,
so she could fly back to The Villages and spend a week with her mom. She and
Ruthie have the same birthday, August 1st, so every year they
spend
that week together, while Rudy, Gretchen and I hike, play poker, drink
beer and
smoke cigars... (well, maybe not the last activity, anyway). Suzanne
seemed to like
the birthday flowers that the puppies sent her. Somehow my piece of her
birthday cake never made it back to me; maybe the TSA inspectors ate it.
The White Mountains of New Hampshire are impressive, steeply rising to 5,000-6,000 feet, far above the lower valley floors. This was the view on I-93 headed north to my campground in Carroll, NH.
I
used this time to hike, bike and hike some more. On a hike near the
Ethan Pond shelter in Crawford Notch, NH, I met three delightful and
lovely young women from Oz, Muddy Duckling, Fire Bear and Red Back. They
live in Perth, Western Australia, one of my favorite places Down Under.
They are thru-hiking the AT, and have only 350 miles to go until they
reach Mt. Katahdin, Maine. We laughed about running into the same weird
thru-hiker (who shall remain anonymous) hundreds of miles apart; he has a
reputation for smoking in the shelters, passing out due to heavy
drinking, mooching food and asking other hikers (me among others) to
boil water for him, since he wasn't carrying a lightweight stove. Your
trail reputation travels quickly in this relatively small community...
Most of the trails in the White Mountains are not the pine needle-covered, relatively smooth paths
one is used to in less mountainous terrain, or even in most parts of
the western US. Rather, they are rocky, steep and often rooty, as was
this part of a trail I hiked on the flank of Mt. Madison. Going up is
hard enough, but coming back down is much worse, mostly due to the
slippery roots and rocks and the chance of taking a dive head first.
Fortunately, I took these sections very slowly, and only slipped on my
butt a couple of times, with no serious bruises.
This
sign is designed to give day hikers pause as to whether they are really
prepared for the sometimes extreme weather for which the White
Mountains are infamous. Mt. Washington for decades held the record for
highest winds in the US, 231 mph. It can be 70 degrees at the bottom of
the mountain and snowing on top. Unfortunately, we didn't have good
weather on the day we planned to visit that peak; we'll save that for
our next visit.
While
the pups and I were at a campground in New Hampshire, Suzanne was
marrying her sister back in The Villages. WHAT??? Okay, here's the deal.
Suzanne officiated at her sister Janice's wedding to Steve Gray, seen
here to Suzanne's left. Her mom Ruthie, brother Brent and his wife
Cheryl are to Ruthie's left. The newlyweds spent a three day honeymoon
in the Orlando area before returning to their home in Delaware.
Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Gray!
Finally, I have a strange story to relate. Our 2012 model year car needed a periodic oil change, so I took it to a small, one-lift garage. I waited in the garage bay on a folding chair while the mechanic set to work. The only other vehicle being worked on was a 1975 Chevy truck, which was quite rusty and getting a complete facelift. After about 15 minutes, the owner came up to me and said, "Well, you're a special customer!" I asked why, and he said, "Well, we don't usually see late model cars here, and your car
takes synthetic 0W20 oil, which we don't stock, but I think there may
be some in the next town. I'll just drive over and get some." He
departed and I asked the mechanic, who was standing idly by having a smoke, "You know, I could come back another day. Have you already drained the oil?" He replied with a smile, "Oh, yes. You're stuck here now." I masked my feeling of impending doom, and simply smiled back and said, "I'm sure it will work
out just fine." We chatted for about 20 minutes, mostly about the long
weeks of -30F winter temperature and snow too deep to plow ("Oh, it's not so bad... it's a dry cold.") Then I asked
if I could use the shop's rest room. He pointed outside and said, "It's
around the corner in the shed but it's just for peeing." Entering the
shed, I found a wooden pallet placed in front of a circle of rocks about
2 feet in diameter with a pile of sand in the middle; it gave off the pungent odor of, well, you know. Fortunately, the
garage owner returned shortly after with the oil, the job was completed
and I departed with a deeper appreciation of life in rural New
Hampshire.
While in Newport, RI, Suzanne dragged me out on a run around the base. She particularly wanted to return to the location of her first prison cell, King Hall. Okay, it wasn't really a prison; it was actually Naval Officer Candidate School (OCS), where she spent 16 weeks during the summer of 1983. While several 12 Meter racing yachts were practicing for the upcoming America's Cup on Narragansett Bay, just outside her window, she had to learn how to march, repair broken water pipes, fight oil fires and navigate by the stars. 
Some nautical trivia: King Hall was named for Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, USN, a five-star admiral who served as Commander-in-Chief, US Fleet, and Chief of Naval Operations during World War II. A graduate of the US Naval Academy Class of 1901, he was one of few senior officers with sea duty assignments in destroyers, submarines and aircraft carriers. He qualified as a naval aviator at age 47, and while at the Naval War College, wrote a paper reflecting that America's greatest weakness was representative democracy, and that "Historically ... it is traditional and habitual for us to be
inadequately prepared. This is the combined result of a number of factors,
the character of which is only indicated: democracy, which tends to make
everyone believe that he knows it all; the preponderance (inherent in
democracy) of people whose real interest is in their own welfare as
individuals; the glorification of our own victories in war and the
corresponding ignorance of our defeats (and disgraces) and of their
basic causes; the inability of the average individual (the man in the
street) to understand the cause and effect not only in foreign but
domestic affairs, as well as his lack of interest in such matters. Added
to these elements is the manner in which our representative form of government has developed as to put a premium on
mediocrity and to emphasize the defects of the electorate already
mentioned." (I find that I agree with every one of the good admiral's points...)
As we were leaving Newport, just a few days after Suzanne's presentation of The Celebration of Wolf's Message in Plymouth, this image appeared on the back of our car. Apparently formed by artistic seagulls, it looks very much like a wolf howling at the moon. Another one of life's synchronicities... 
Our summer tour continued south with a stop in Delaware, but purely for family and R&R purposes. Suzanne's Lovely Sister Janice and her new husband Steve live in a beautiful home backing up to a state park, but the highlight of our brief visit (other than spending time with the newlyweds) was not hiking - it was getting to know a Viper. Not the snake kind, of course, since vipers are not indigenous to Delaware. This Viper was a beautiful black sports car that Steve and Janice had just ordered from a dealer in the Midwest. It arrived in a closed trailer and in pristine condition. Steve took both Suzanne and me out (separately) for a spin, and the acceleration was even more impressive than we had expected. This was Steve's sixth Viper; in fact, he had raced his previous cars back in the '90s, but he alleges that this one is just for fun. 
After our road tests, Barkeep Janice broke out a nice Chardonnay and showed us their home, furnished with some eclectic pieces like this bar which could have come from a small hotel. We toured around and had dinner out at one of Steve's favorite Italian restaurants (he's lived in Newark, DE, his entire life) and learned about running a small business. We also took a walk on the Wilmington, DE, Riverwalk, and played a round of putt-putt (miniature golf). It was a fun visit, but way too short...
The next day found us driving south down the scenic and bucolic DELMARVA peninsula on US-301 and across the Annapolis-Kent Island Bay Bridge to our campground at Fort Belvoir, just off the Potomac River on Accotink Bay. This would be my base for a few days while Suzanne took AMTRAK from DC's Union Station to Penn Station, NYC, and up the Hudson on to Rheinbeck, NY. She was a keynote speaker at the Omega Institute, along with Dr. Gary Schwartz and Dr. Eban Alexander. 
While Suzanne was away, I indulged my PT desires with the rowing machine at the base gym, hiking the forest trails of the Accotink National Wildlife Preserve, kayaking Accotink Bay and bicycling around the base. Paddling one morning alone on the bay proved a meditative blessing; for more than an hour there were no other boats around, and I was able to enjoy the many birds resident there. These laughing gulls on old pilings were obviously used to human company, and allowed me to paddle very close to them. Several osprey out fishing were less companionable, keeping a wide distance from my kayak. 
Mellow paddling that morning allowed me to reflect on the reflections of the sun in my paddle swirls... I tried to distinguish a pattern, but it kept dissolving and reforming, like swirling clouds in a thunderstorm.
When Suzanne returned, we went hiking together on some pleasant trails and found her a brief resting place on this tree with an unusual horizontal bend in its trunk. 
The forest here is lush, and there were many interesting mushrooms, lichens and fungi to observe... 
We were happy to be able to meet our daughter Susan's best friend from high school while in the DC area. Hannah Yeronick, daughter of an Air Force colonel, works as a contractor for the intelligence services and is in the midst of planning a gala wedding. We know that Susan will be there in spirit and celebrating that event with Hannah. 
Another fun social event was getting together with award-winning author William (Bill) Hammond and his sons Harrison and Churchill on the waterfront in Old Town Alexandria. We had a great time catching up on their exploits; Bill will soon be moving back to Wayzata, Minnesnowta, just in time for winter; Harrison is getting ready to head to Fort Benning as a newly commissioned US Army Second Lieutenant; and Churchill continues working on his master's degree in Washington. 
