From Hazard’s notes:
Day 83: July 31, 2009
Travel:
From: Ten Mile River Lean-to, CT
To: Kent, CT
Beginning: 10:00am
Ending: 1:30pm
Number of miles hiked:
a) Trail – 8.4
b) other – .8 to town
c) AT Mile Marker – 1455.9 cumulative
Weather:
AM: Woke up to pouring rain. Tried to wait it out and lost a lot of time.
PM: It poured as soon as we got to town but lightened up once we got to Joy’s.
People: Everyone was gone from the shelter early this morning. Joy, who took us in for the night.
Animals: Mosquitoes!
Money: $20 for resupply, $10 for dinner. $1514 cumulative.
Notes of the day:
AM: Woke up to driving rain, with everyone but us nowhere to be found. We weren’t particularly motivated to walk in that mess so we decided to wait it out. It wasn’t until around 10am that it let up enough for us to get moving. We first crossed over Ten Mile River which was bloated well beyond its banks and looked like some extreme white water. The sound of the rushing water was deafening. The rest of the day’s walk was a blur of rolling hills, mosquitoes, and slogging through the mud. Spoon and Croc were waiting for me when I got to the road to Kent. We tried for a hitch, but that wasn’t happening. The first major store we hit in town was the outfitter which had nothing we needed. It was poorly stocked in general for hiker gear. A local came in and we asked if there were any cheap places to stay around here because I for one was spent and ready to quit for the day. He laughed at us and said, “You’re in Kent, nothing’s cheap”. We had bad timing too because the Jazz festival was in town and every place would be booked up anyway. So we walked down the road, in the rain of course, to the post office. When we got there I collected my care package from Cat, Spoon got his socks from his sister, and Croc got his other backpack from home. I immediately went digging through Cat’s package and pulled out the caramel & German chocolate brownies and feasted. All the while Spoon had been talking to a woman in line about how we needed a place to stay that night and she thought about it and then said, “Yea, I could be a Trail Angel tonight.”
PM: We agreed to meet outside the grocery store at 4pm because she had errands to run and we had to resupply. Once 4pm rolled around we piled into Joy’s car and left town for her place. Joy’s home was delightful and she had many outer buildings. One that housed her studio, a workshop, a bunkhouse for guests, and an area for her kiln. About a years worth of her work was about ready to come out of the kiln, as she was in the middle of the week long cool down phase. She had another guest with her tonight who was a famous ceramic artist who’s name I cannot remember, but they were all going out to dinner so we had the place to ourselves. We had offered to cook them dinner but it ended up just being the three of us. We made a spaghetti dinner with sausage and garlic bread, and a salad on the side. Needless to say it was delicious and felt great to sit at a table with a hearty meal. The rest of the night was relaxing and I got a chance to call Cat to thank her for the package and wish her luck in tomorrow’s half-marathon.