Vermont

I've heard or read several times over the past few days that Vermont is a lot of people's favorite part of the trail. I'm only fifteen miles in so far, so I'm going to reserve judgement, but there's definitely a lot of steepness and mud. I've been hearing that they're very into letting the trail be natural here, which means they don't clear tree falls, don't cut back vegetation, and apparently don't reblaze the trail. Sounds frustrating. The people are great so far, though. 

Hard-to-kill was indeed at the same shelter as us last night, in his tent. It never did rain last night. We took off around 0730, me, Gear, and HTK. Passed the 1600 mile mark today. Stopped for lunch in a shelter, and I definitely dozed off for about half an hour. The humidity, mud, and heat were taking it out of us. 

Started hiking again, but I let Gear and HTK go on ahead. I was listening to a sermon I'd downloaded, and was walking a little slower than them. When I came to the road into Bennington, the heavens were just starting to open up. It was pouring. I was just glad it had waited until I got off the steep stone steps leading down the hill. 

I heard yelling from the parking lot, and there was Gear at a car waving at me. I ran over, and there was a trail angel there. He gave me a drink, and Gear told me they'd been talking about the Catamount Motel, a place with very reasonable rates and very hiker friendly. I'd been hearing about this place for a while, but we'd only done a little over 11 miles today so I wanted to go on. Then lightning flashed and the heavy downpour started flying sideways, so I jumped in the truck and said let's go. 

I'm easily bought, I admit. But these guys were great to us. The room is clean, amenities are nice, free ride to and from trail, but mostly I loved that they treated us like family here. The managers acted like we were guests in their own home, and they were wonderful hosts. We were even invited to a steamed clam and lobster dinner. They had brought live lobsters and clams from the coast. This was my first experience with eating a lobster that was staring at me, but I was given a tutorial. I only dropped one claw on the floor. Ate it anyway. It was really good, and I stuffed myself on the overlarge crawdads. Didn't particularly care for the clams. They were okay, but there was a little too much grit/sand for my taste. 

Also met the other guys hiking for Hike for Heroes. They are staying at the same place. With a big truck. They had no idea who I was, which, considering how few the funds are that I've raised, is fair enough. They are now doing a flip flop, and heading south. Only one of them is still actually hiking, the other has become the support team. Sigh. Would be nice. They are holing up for a few days due to an injury. Like them on Facebook, if you get the chance. 

I've been ridiculously blessed on this trip. So many great experiences.  Have to make some hard miles tomorrow if we want to make our reservations at the Green Mountain House for the 4th of July.  As always, check out my Hike for Heroes link to the right of this page. 

Part of the lobster feast. 

This stuff was awesome!