July 13-14 in NY

July 13, 2005 | Day 108 | Miles: 12.9 | Total Miles: 1395.2
End: Graymoor Friary ballfield, NY, Tent
Danielle:
Overcast, humid, heavy and hot
Well, we are back to doing OK mileage- and time-wise, at least for today, which made us feel a bit better :-) The morning consisted of two pretty big climbs, which were quite nice with some views, despite the haze. Then we hit the lowpoint of the trip, 124 ft. in front of the bear exhibit in the Bear Mountain Zoo. It was pretty funny to walk through the zoo! Then a quick resupply in Fort Montgomery, NY where there is no one willing to pick up two tired hikers along the road... must be too close to NYC. No trust here! Oh well, at least it wasn't a bad walk, but it was still a walk on the pavement. And now we're lounging in the pavillion at the ballfield at the Graymoor Friary. The brothers are nice enough to let hikers stay, and feed them dinner too. I lucked out by saying I was vegetarian--I got a HUGE bowl of pasta with veggies, while everyone else got a small piece of chicken and fries. I ended up passing my pasta around to fill everyone up... The evening ended with a long-winded tour of the place, which was neat, except that we were all tired! It is really nice of the friars to offer up the space to us and be so hospitable :-) A good place to be for the night...

Ryan:
mostly cloudy, humid
today we hit our low point of the trip...literally. 124 feet. i guess, it's all uphill from here. ouch. we also saw a bear...i told you we were going to see a bear. we walked through the bear mountain trailside zoo. it was a little weird. we spend every night hanging our food to keep bears out, and today we watch a bear wander to the back of its pen while 15 seven year olds yell at it. a bit strange. we're staying on the ballfield at the graymoor friary. the friars fed us, too. danielle ordered the veggie meal and got a giant vat of pasta. me? mediocre fried chicken. but it was free and, prepared and served by the nice folks from the rehab clinic next door. ah, the trail...such a weird place.

July 14, 2005 | Day 109 | Miles: 8.2 | Total Miles: 1403.4
End: Holiday Inn, Fishkill, NY
Danielle:
Overcast, hot and humid
Hmmm, the trail doesn't really go near Fishkill, but here we are... We had a rough day today. Ryan's back was really killing him, and there were multiple breakdowns on the trail, so we ended up making a "Need help" sign for me to hold up off this random road leading to a lake. A nice older woman stopped to help us out, and drove us here, the closest civilization north of where we were at. We plan to relax tomorrow and attempt to get back on the trail on Sunday. We will just have to see how it goes... Of course we WANT to keep going, we've come so far, but if Ryan is in pain every day, with every breath with his pack on, is it worth it? These are the discussions we keep having... We don't want to give up without a fight so we'll try to get back out there and keep moving forward.... and see what happens.

Ryan:
hazy, humid
i shouldn't have made that joke about the low point. today was the roughest day yet, and hopefully, not our last. i'm having a lot of trouble with my back. (different spot from a previous episode.) basically, it hurts to breathe while carrying my pack...walking is even worse. adding it to all the things that already hurt, we're seriously considering continuing. neither of us want to go on, if we're both going to be miserable. that being said, we're going to take at least a day off, and then see what happens. hopefully, things will turn around.