Well, today is Monday, July 2.  I woke up this morning with some aches and pains and thought it best to take a zero day.  I had today scheduled as a zero day, but was going to move on to Norwich.  I think the best plan is to rest because the next 5 days will be a lot of elevation changes.  So, I will rest and eat lots of food.  The Dutchman and Mouse have moved on, and Doug may catch up.  It is going to be in the high eighties and muggy for the rest of the week so it will be a challenging week.  I have uploaded some more pictures.  Enjoy.

Hi everyone, today is Sunday, July1. It has been a full three weeks and this is the first chance I have had to blog.   I have hiked through New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and now I am in Manchester Vermont. I ended up having 3 zero days with the Greenberg's in New Jersey; the third day was to avoid a big rain storm. I'm glad I did because everyone on the trail was talking about how miserable they were hiking in the storm.  I really like New Jersey, the views were terrific ( I could see New York City from 50 miles away). There are a lot of bears in New Jersey, and I had one sniffing around my tent one morning at 5:00 just as I was ready to get up and get going.  So I just laid in my tent quietly for 30 minutes until he was done sniffing around and walked off into the woods. The weather through all these states has been very hot an muggy.  Many days have been in the 80's and some days in the 90's.  Even with the heat and the increased difficulty of the terrain, I have been averaging 22 miles per day through this section.  New York was very difficult for me.  I was not expecting the many steep rock scrambles and the heat and humidity.  Plus, I have found that I was still not eating enough food to keep me energized.  When I got to Greenwood Lake NY, I had run out of gas after 6 miles and was wondering how I was going to keep going.  I hiked another 4 miles to a road and walked 2 more miles into town and sat for 2 hours and ate as much food as I could, and brought a HUGE sub back on the trail with me for supper - it did the trick.  The day after father's day I was tired and discouraged and ended up taking a zero day after 4 miles of hiking and washed my cloths (all soaked with days of sweat), and more food and rested.  This ended up being a big boost.  Prior to this day I hadn't seen any of the hikers that I had been hiking with all along.  And, the people that were hiking in this little bubble of hikers were a bit rough. I eventually connected with hikers I had been hiking with in North Carolina and Virginia.  We had been separated because we all took extended zero days because of various reasons, but mostly because people jumped off the trail to nurse injuries.  Meeting up with these other hikers like "mouse", "Spock", and "the Dutchman" gave me a book psychological boost.  We have been hiking together through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and now Vermont.  When I got to Kent, Connecticut, I got off the trail to resupply after 10 miles of hiking and planned on getting back on the trail for another 10 miles.  It was 98 degrees and 100% humidity that day, and the hottest day I experienced on the Trail.  "Spock" and "Glasses" came off the trail for a break to avoid the heat.  We all had lunch, went shopping at the IGA, and washed all of our sweat soaked cloths at the laundry before we got back on the trail. "spock" and I decided that we could just stay in town and get a hotel room ("glasses" needed to get back on the trail).  So the two of us got a room at a cool bed and breakfast that caters to hikers.  We ended up staying two nights so we could slack pack the next 16 miles section.  Boy, am I glad that we did, because we finished our 16 miles and called the Inn for a ride back to the Inn, and while we were waiting to be picked up a enormous thunderstorm came rolling in.  We took shelter under a wooden covered bridge in West Cornwall Connecticut.  We sat and watched the lightning strike the mountain that we would have been on if we were still on the trail and not slack packing.  Trees were blown down all over the place.  The next couple of days on the trail we were running into hikers who were caught in the storm and they had some wild stories of dodging trees that were falling around them and lightning strikes all around them. When we got to Great Barrington, Massachusetts my brother Dave, his wife Cathy,. and daughter Carly came out to see us and hiked in onto the trail to meet us.  They took us into Great Barrington and we had a great time at lunch, eating ice cream, and telling stories of the trail.  We neroed in Great Barrington and slack packed 8 miles the next day. We had a break in the weather and a couple of cool days in Massachusetts.  When we hit Dalton, Mass, we stayed at a hiker hostel that has become my favorite place on the trail.  "Spock", "The Dutchman" and I were transported to North Adams, by Tom (the owner of the hostel) and we slack packed the 23 miles over Mount Greylock (the highest mountain in Mass) back to Dalton.  This was fun because we ran into other hikers that were a day ahead of us, and hikers we hadn't seen since Virginia.  When we were getting back on the trail in North Adams, Mass to continue our trek north into Vermont, we met our first southbound thruhiker.  We talked with him for awhile and gave him trail info going south and obtained trail info going north. We met two more southbound thruhikers the two following days. Today, I arrived in Manchester, Vermont with "mouse" and "the Dutchman" ("spock" is a day behind because the heat is slowing him down, but he'll catch up and we will be together by next weekend). We are staying at this fantastic hostel in Manchester and we have resupplied and will be making a 5 day trek to Norwich starting tomorrow, July 2.  We will spend Wednesday night at Killington and will be in Norwich, Vt by Friday afternoon if all goes according to plan.  I will take a couple of Zero days in Norwich and prepare for the most difficult section of the trail - New Hampshire and the White Mountains.  I hope to have internet time in Norwich next Sunday and time to update you on my trek and post updated pictures.

Hi everyone.  Today is Tuesday, June 12. I completed the section through Pennsylvania at 7:30 on Sunday morning, June 10.  Since Harper's Ferry, my average daily mileage has been 24.7 miles per day.  Right now I am taking a couple of zero days with my brother and sister in law David and Michelle and their boys Gabe, Michael, and A.J. in New Jersey.  I crossed into New Jersey Sunday morning at the Delaware Water Gap and David came out to pick me up.  I did stop at the hostel at the Delaware Water Gap and took a shower and put on clean cloths before I got into David's vehicle (I can't explain the degree of smell from the "hiker funk" that is our body odor - it is so bad that when we leave a store the clerks walk around spraying fabreeze).  The last 11 days of hiking have been fun, adventurous, and some of the most rewarding.  First, most of the people I had been hiking with before I took a week off in Harper's Ferry and D.C. have hiked past me and I have been catching up with them.  It has been fun reconnecting with them.  I have come across a different group of people that I hadn't encountered on the trail, this is a younger crowd who likes to party - I'm way past that stage in my life and I'm just as happy to have broken away from this group.  For about 4-5 days I hiked with this nice kid (age 26) "Mr Wrong"  and we had a lot of laughs.  One day the innersole of one of his shoes cracked and caused him much pain and the new shoes were 3 days away from being shipped in, so he hiked in his Crocks for about 75 miles.  We encountered some severe weather and cut a 35 mile day short and stayed in this old mansion turned into a hostel located at Pine Grove Furnace, PA.  The next day we were going to make up the mileage and hike the 35 miles and we entered Boiling Springs, PA (one of the most beautiful 'Norman Rockwell' picturesque towns on the trail) and they were having a big festival so we stayed for some local BBQ, and then found out the local resort had a special deal for hikers - so we cut our day short at 2:00 and ended up spending the night in a nice luxury resort and had a huge buffet dinner with lots of sushi.  The next day we hiked into a town called "Duncannon" which is an old mill town and railroad town that has seen better days.  Although the people there were terrific.  We stayed at this infamous hotel called the "Doyle" and nicknamed the "Dirty Doyle".  The Doyle had the best Hamburger on the trail; but the Doyle is an old flee bag of a flop house that is one step above sleeping in a cardboard box under a railroad bridge.  "Mr. Wrong" held up in Duncannon to wait for his shoes and I moved on to meet another hiker "Marathon".  "Marathon" and I connected on Clingman's Dome in Tennessee and then again in Hot Springs, North Carolina.  He had made it past Rutland, VT (hence the trail name Marathon) and had jumped off  the trail to come home to be in his best friend's wedding.) His house is 10 minutes from the trail and he came and picked me up and we went into Lancaster, PA to eat at the world's largest buffet.  Let me tell you, it was amazing; it is the size of a Home Depot.  I ate an enormous amount of food there.  From there I went on to Port Clinton, PA where I got shuttled into Hamburg, PA by Cabela's and was able to replace some worn out gear.  As you can see in the pictures that I posted I have hiked through much farmland and some easy footing for about a 100 miles.  However, as you can see in the pictures, the next 50 miles from Port Clinton, PA to the New Jersey Border at the Delaware Water Gap was nothing but a grueling hike that was the most difficult section of the trail.  Yet all in all, Pennsylvania was some of the most enjoyable hiking I've had on the trail.  Now I am enjoying an extended stay with David, Michelle and the boys.  I have had the most enjoyable time with them and am well fed and well rested.  Michelle was going to drive me back to the trail this morning, but a huge rainstorm is coming through with thunderstorms and predicted 2 inches of rain.  David urged me to take another zero day and hunker down from the rain. I resisted at first because I don't mind hiking in the rain; but when I saw the updated forecast last night with the forecast of the severity of the storm, I decided to take David's advice and spend another day with them.  Plus, they are so much fun and I don't get to see them all that often.  Next I'm onto about 17 days of hiking through NJ, NY, CT, MA and should be in VT by the weekend of June 30th.  New pictures are posted.

Today is Friday, June 1.  I have hiked out of Harper's Ferry and am at mile 1,095 just past the official halfway point of mile 1,092.  I hope to be in New Jersey sometime between Sunday, June 9 and Tuesday, June 11 - we'll see.  Parts of Pennsylvania are flat and high mileage days, but some parts of Pennsylvania are very rocky and slow going.  I just don't know what my daily mileage will be.  For the past couple of weeks I've been anywhere from 18 to 30 miles per day.  Since I've been off the trail for a week, some people I had hiked  past have caught up and it has been good seeing them; others have moved ahead, and I'd like to catch up to them.  The past few days have been hot and muggy, but a big weather front is moving through and the forecast for the next few days calls for mid 70's temperatures and lower humidity. 

Well, since I made it to Harper's Ferry I have been resting.  Denise flew down to D.C. and we spent the Memorial Day weekend together.  It was fantastic to see her - we haven't seen oneanother since she dropped me off at Logan on March,17.  I arrived at Harper's Ferry ahead of schedule and was going to hike on a couple of days before I came into D.C., but Denise suggested that I take the time to rest my sore feet. I'm glad that I listened to her, because I feel much better.  We had a wonderful time in the city.  We toured around and saw the monuments.  Yes we walked.....it gave me a chance to break in the new shoes Denise brought to me.  We had some wonderful dinners, went to the Smithonian, and saw the Memorial Day parade.  It was sad to see Denise go.  Today, Tuesday, May 29, I am heading back to Harper's Ferry and jumping back on the trail.  The next three weeks will be a fast moving pace ( I hope).  It has been in the 90's this week, and hopefully I will have cooler weather the next couple of weeks. 

I have added another 139 photos for your viewing pleasure.  I am taking a couple of zero days in Harper's Ferry to rest my sore feet.  All of the hikers are coming in with sore feet, shine splints, or knee/ankle problems.  Compaired to most I'm fairing pretty well, but my feet are in need of a rest.

I have made it to Harper's Ferry, today, May 22 at 2:00 P.M.  Halfway Baby. I am thruhiker #184 to make it into Harpers Ferry from Springer Mt. I was  planning on hiking in yesterday, but my feet were sore, and it was pouring rain so I took a zero day at the ATC Bears Den Hostel, 20 miles south of Harper's Ferry.  It was a great place to take a zero day. I am over a week ahead of schedule.