Thistle Hill Shelter has a famous and popular privy from the old Cloudland Shelter. The Cloudland Shelter burned down but everyone rallied to save the privy and relocate it to the new shelter on the other side of the mountain. It’s a privy with a view; 360 degrees of view, in fact. I would like to assure the reader that at no time was there any danger of me seeing Bear’s ass in the following photos.
Rich had decided last night that he was going to call it a day at West Hartford, VT. His claim was that he can’t hike fast enough to keep up with us. It was an alleged 6 miles of easy hiking to town that was very reminiscent of the roller coaster in VA. It was taking us longer than we thought it would. When we stopped for a break near 11, Rich realized how late it was getting. He had arranged for an Uber to meet him at 12:00. It turns out Rich can keep up and even outpace the four of us when he thinks he might be late for his ride and have to spend another day hiking. He was a dot to us.
West Hartford is just on the other side of the White River. A bunch of sobos had told us we could jump off the bridge and swim to a nice sandy beach downriver. Sounds like a plan. Bear, and I were almost down to our skivvies while we were waiting for a one armed man to jump (no, he didn’t kill one of our wives). Sassy and Bunny got scared and refused to jump, so we decided to skip it to save them from shame. I guess I may have overstated my fear of Bunny and Sassy turning into Thelma and Louise if they won’t even jump off a bridge with a near 100% chance of survival.
We did catch up with Rich at the trail magic house for a soda and to say goodbye. This is another trail angel that keeps sodas, cookies, and fruit on the porch for hikers. We all stuck around until Rich’s ride showed up. I’m continually amazed at all the wonderful people we have met along our journey since we have started hiking last year. To think that we met Rich and Laura in passing last year and now we have some new friends in exotic New Jersey.
We still had one more big climb to get out of VT. To know that we were putting an end to Vermud energized us. We ended up in Norwich with magic along road. The residents of town set out treats for hikers at the end of their drives. We had cokes, candy, fresh made banana bread, cookies, and fruit as we walked our final mile in VT. Had this been at other end of state…
Ironically, the Connecticut River separates VT from NH. The river is shared between the two states meaning we crossed the state line and left our 12th state and entered Hanover, NH in the middle of the river. Unlike the Kennebec River in Maine, this one has a bridge so no canoe ride was required to get across. I have clear recollections of having been here a couple years ago with Peter and Marcia, but they assured me we didn’t come here. Clearly, Bunny and they are starting to lose their memory.
Hanover was immediately friendly to us. Everyone we met offered congratulations for making it this far. This is a very hiker friendly town with a list of trail angels willing to help out hikers as they arrive. We chose to have dinner at the Skinny Pancake and asked for a table off to the side because we were very aware of our smells. Walking down Main Street, we could smell the clean of people which emphasized our smells to ourselves. Even so, no Good Samaritans came over and told us how bad we smelled like the public minded man in Cheshire, MA. Instead, people came to our table and wished us luck on our journey. Hanover/Norwich is now at the top of my list.
Rather than bother a trail angel, we just called an Uber to get to the motel. There are new owners at the Sunset Motor Lodge and they are in the process of renovating the place. He offered to do our laundry as soon as we could get it to him. We showered, gave our dirty clothes to Bear (he is setting a bad example and doing the laundry), and called it a day. I didn’t even surf the channels looking for a rerun of Big Bang Theory.
EFG