Thursday, 26 July, Day 16 AT v2.0, 0.0 miles, Telephone Pioneer Shelter. By Crocadilly - After the high of yesterday we woke up to a massive low! We set up camp in the shelter last night due to the threat of rain and the fact it was quite late by the time we arrived! I was so tired I didn't have anything more for dinner other than a cereal bar! It was all i could do to pretend I felt awesome in front of a load of south bounders who were great fun and get myself into bed! Every muscle ached as you would expect having lugged 34lbs on your back for the first time 18.8 (including deli detour) miles up and down hills! But I was happy! Even though my much needed sleep as ever was interrupted by feeling hungry, the aching muscles, the puppies stirring and snuggling on me (which i love) and snoring and rain! But as ever it doesn't matter you wake raring to go!!! But when we woke up this morning and got moving it was soon clear Skye had a serious issue... he was limping. He was fine when he went to bed although he had taken a tumble getting into the shelter so must have damaged his paw or leg... but there was nothing visible. Which was more worrying than finding a visible cut! The south bounders we had a fun night with packed up and left, leaving us pondering what to do! Do we stay and hope a day off the paw is all he needs, do we travel 0.7 miles to the nearest road and try to hitch to the nearest vet or try and go the three miles with him to the nearest store and get a motel room / ride from there? We decided to stay put which was hard since the weather was so nice (at times like these you hope for rain so it makes staying put seem more worth while) plus we had little to no cell coverage so no chance to call anyone ,read or do the blog! I slept most of the day! Actually it was a restless day and I had too much to think about which was not good. We did have some good banter with a bunch of great German guys who came through and old smoke turned up! Later in the afternoon more hikers came through and I finally got to meet blah blah and a couple of other chaps Scott has said so much about! With them came the news that there was a tornado and storm watch.... They were headed three miles to shelter where Rampage and Mango and their dog would be. They are a great couple who Scott had told me loads about! Mango is driving with their dog sammy and following her fiancé rampage as he hikes with a group of great guys! I couldn't wait to meet them! Scott was itching to meet up with everyone again and we were hoping some would stay at the shelter with the storm not far off! What were we going to do? We tried calling a motor lodge but got no answer and worried with the impending threat of the storm approaching decided to stay safe in the shelter watching blah blah, old smoke, Apollo, etc head off down to civilization leaving us alone. Which was just aswell because in a five minute period where Scott managed to get service we found out said motor lodge which took pets only had two rooms which were both occupied for the approaching apocalypse! So we stayed.. On the top of a tree lined mountain by ourselves. We readied ourselves for the impending storm and had just packed up our dinner things and hauled the dogs into the three sided shelter when the sky went this horrible yellow colour and the wind suddenly whipped through the trees! You could feel the storm physically coming! Apparently from the valley below where everybody else was clustered the clouds that rolled in were reminiscent of those from the movie independence day! The loudest crack of thunder I have ever heard followed the winds that you could feel being sucked down the mountain face and then a rainstorm ensued! The storm was pretty impressive for about ten mins and me loving storms I was braced and ready to watch it for hours! It was soon apparent thankfully for us that we were not to receive the brunt of it...which apart from a safety point of view was a little disappointing!! At this point we were subjected to a continuous rain and the rumble of the storm in the distance and it was chilly and dark and then I realized it was only 1930!!!! So I tried to go to sleep!!! Would we wake up to find ourselves the sole survivors of some early apocalyptic doom? Would skye bounce out of the shelter in the morning? Would my leg muscles ever forgive me for hiking so far or get used to the fact that would not be the only time i would push them?!
Friday, 27 July, Day 17 AT v2.0, 13.7 miles, Stealth Campsite near Bulls Bridge CT :) meeting up with old friends...Well what a crap storm that turned out to be! And I say that in the lightest of tones and with thankfulness because i know Elmira and other towns in the state of new York and surrounding states were not so lucky and suffered some quite catastrophic damage. As exciting as it seems to be to watch a storm knowing you are relatively safe on the trail things can go bad and even with a solid house roof over your head such a summer storm is something that should not be belittled. Relieved to wake up to sunshine, no storm, a fully recovered Skye, the furry babies bouncing around full of energy and I kid you not listening to a massive tree toppling and falling down a hill some distance away along the trail I think we were both somewhat relieved! It could have been so much worse and you know that being awoken to the sounds of chainsaws in the middle of the night does not bode well!! We enjoyed a coffee and a leisurely getting ready to leave the lovely shelter that had served us so well! We had a lovely easy walk the three miles to the railway station and garden center below us! We were met by blah blah and old smoke! It's funny everyone is relieved the storm wasn't as bad as anticipated but everyone is slightly disappointed! I finally got to meet rampage and mango and their dog who are all awesome! Mango offered to take Skye in the car to rest his leg one more day and slack pack us (we just carry basics like water and our packs are in the car = awesome!) mango also let Scott borrow the car to resupply and get yummy subs! :) I thoroughly enjoyed the ten or so miles we hiked bouncing along and taking pictures of the beautiful countryside! Life felt good and felt even better when it rained as I felt like I had a lovely fresh shower! Mojo loved running around without his pack but it was weird just having one dog with us! We came across some massive trees that had fallen across the trail during the storm. Obviously it had been worse than we thought. We passed the new York and connecticut border and a couple of other hikers including a fab guy called chocolate steak who Scott had told me all about! My first impressions of this new state we were hiking through - beautiful countryside but wow the amount of rubbish (trash) strewn everywhere and litter on the sides of the road was monumental. We passed through an obviously well used state park and piles of bin bags were under a sign saying carry in carry out your trash...disappointing! But what was awesome was meeting up with and stealth camping with beers around a camp fire with a great bunch of people... Rampage, mango, chocolate steak, Franklinstein, Apollo, Blah Blah and Ambassador and of course our dogs and Sammy! All old acquaintances of Scott! Skye had obviously enjoyed his down day travelling in the car and the two boys were overjoyed to see each other when they were reunited after a few hours too!! We had a great evening...great day infact and I felt like I was getting a true picture of life on the trail as Scott had experienced before he had to leave! The only down point of the day apart from the trash was getting stung by a wasp when I was getting ready for bed! It took me ten minutes to kill the pesky critter!!!
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