Maybe it was sympathy, but everyone else claimed to be feeling a bit wore out from the 50 miles we’ve covered in the last four days. I admit, I’m no spring chicken (and I’m still the youngest). I can always count on Bunny’s hip to be bothering her after a hard day. Sassy’s knees are her weakness. Bear’s vestigial tendon in his leg (the same one that caused Derrick’s alpine injury in a parking lot on the way to a hike a couple years ago) is his weakness. We’re a group of nearly hobbled hikers.
It was agreed that last night was to be “rest only” and we’d figure out what we would do today at breakfast. There is a bus stop right out front of the Inn with the bus heading into Rutland. Resupply will be easy once we figure out where we are headed and when we will resupply next. My feet are still hurting so I was up for a short day. It was agreed that we’d hike 4 miles to Mountain Meadows Lodge where we could stay inside and avoid the rain that was supposed to come. With only 4 miles to hike, we could catch a later bus, shop, and eat lunch in town before heading out. We’d still get to the Lodge in time to eat supper. Since breakfast is included, we can extend our town meals to six in a row and still get some miles in. Leisurely day had won.
No pressure today. I called and made sure there were rooms available at the Lodge. With secure lodging for the night and a short walk planned, we had time to lounge a bit before catching the bus to town. Rutland held a lot of surprises for us. It’s the birthplace of John Deere who made it possible to break up the prairies. Which, in turn, made it necessary for some unlucky people to settle in crappy places like MO and IL. Our families were among those fools.
Vermont was also home to Rudyard Kipling when he wrote the “Jungle Book.” He actually lived in southern VT and was house locked because of all the mud. He had plenty of time to write while waiting for things to dry out. This is where his body was found 10 years later with the finished book. It’s very difficult to make it out of southern Vermont alive, but we did it.
After getting supplies, we decided to try our luck at the Yellow Deli. Bunny and I stayed with the Twelve Tribes just before Harpers Ferry and had a pleasant experience. The food at this Yellow Deli was just as good as our last visit to the tribes. Before we eft they let us upstairs to look around the hostel. This is a much bigger setup than we expected to find. They can easily hold 60 hikers. We chose to stay at the Inn at Long Trail last night because we had heard so many people were headed this way and were afraid it would be full. If we weren’t getting to be in a bit of a time crunch, I’d be willing to stay another night here.
We broke down and caught a bus back to the trail. The thinking was, we are going to have to hike at some point today and 4p looked like a good starting time. Of course, there was a little mud on the trail since it had rained yesterday and last night, but not terrible by Vermud standards. After just one mile of hiking, we got to the “Maine Junction” where the AT departs the Long Trail. It was a cause for much celebration leaving this pitiful “Blue Blaze” that Vermont loves so much that they don’t maintain the first 40 miles to maintain the old historical feel of the trail.
Turning east was met with immediate relief. The sky turned blue, the trail dried out, bunny rabbits and squirrels lined the path and beckoned us to the promised land of easy walking—the Whites are only 100 miles ahead of us. Butterflies started fluttering around Bunny. Ahead, a rainbow opened up and a unicorn ran down the trail. Life will be so much easier now.
We even entered Gifford Woods State Park where the campsites were so inviting. If we hadn’t already made reservations ahead, we would have stopped (especially when we heard rumors of ice cream in the park office). We met a young couple with two little kids who we stopped and talked with for a bit. They are both school teachers so they have their summers free. We tried to get the to drink the “AT Kool Aide” to hike the trail. She seemed a little more receptive to the idea than her husband.
After the State Park, it was an easy walk to Kent Pond. I wish I had owned enough property to have 3 ponds the size of the ponds in VT. Every “pond” we have come across up here could hold 3 of my farms and still have water left over (my farm was only 67 acres). I’ve got to admit that Vermont is a beautiful state. We have really enjoyed the towns we have visited off trail. We just despised the first 40 miles of the Long Trail. I have softened up on it and may add it back to our list of trails to hike.
We got to Mountain Meadows Lodge just as another couple of hikers celebrating their 7th wedding anniversary were ordering some pizza so we added to the order. Since we were so late getting in and there were so few people here, they were not going to prepare any supper. We liked the Lodge, but we felt like they were a little resentful having hikers there. They were not unfriendly, just stand-offish.
It may be cliche, but we just did laundry yesterday and barely broke a sweat walking today, so we just ate and went to bed. I couldn’t even get anyone to get in the hot tub time machine with me. We did surf a bit on the internet and discovered that Lady Bug and Stickers have started calling themselves Lashers instead of thru-hikers. We also saw that Stickers cut all of his hair off and donated it to “Wigs for Kids,” a cancer support group. We tried to contact them, but haven’t heard back yet. We also haven’t heard from Mizman and are getting worried about him. The time commitment can be pretty daunting to thru-hike.
EFG