July 7-8 in NJ

July 7, 2005 | Day 102 | Miles: 18.3 | Total Miles: 1329.5
End: Jim Murray's "secret" shelter, Tent
Danielle:
Mostly cloudy, heavy and humid
A much happier day today, although my feet are still feeling a bit tender. It rained a bit last night and was quite damp out, which brought out all the bright orange salamanders along the trail. We broke our salamander record--51 seen! Wow. They were everywhere. The rest of the day, hiking-wise, was pretty uneventful, although the rocks seem to have mellowed out a bit, which is nice.
We're camped out on this guy's property, where he's built a few cabins and a privy for use by hikers. The "secret" shelter has a nice porch, a sink and a shower with HOT water. Wow! What a spot. It's situated in a meadow, where we've been amused by two donkeys braying in their field out back, a gopher, 4 turkeys, woodpeckers, nuthatches, phoebes and lightening bugs. A great place to spend the night. We've set up the tent on the porch of the other cabin. It's supposed to rain tonight, so we figured we'd get a bit of shelter that way. How awesome this is. Thanks Jim for opening up your property to us :-)
Off to Vernon, NJ tomorrow to meet Ryan's parents. They're picking us up and taking us to Jersey City, where we'll take a day off and hang out with Meghan, Chris, Ryan's parents and grandparents. A big ol' party :-) And best of all, minus 24 hours until cotton clothes :-) Hurray!

Ryan:
overcast, humid, heavy, damp
a bee stung my face today. it hurt...a lot. other than that, an uneventful day, but a much better one overall for team snowplug. spirits are good again. some days just suck. it's not easy to walk everyday. sounds easy, but not really. the secret shelter is awesome. a former thruhiker built it on his property. he also built himself a little bunkhouse, where we set up our tent on his porch. we thought it best to be out of the impending rain tonight. oh yeah, supposedly a tropical storm is going to dump a great deal of rain on us.
today's song - tenth avenue freeze out, springsteen

July 8, 2005 | Day 103 | Miles: 13.6 | Total Miles: 1343.1
End: Meghan & Chris' apartment, Jersey City, NJ
Danielle:
Rain, rain, rain
Ugh, a day of rain. All day. We woke up to rain, headed out in the rain, stopped for a few minutes at a shelter to yell briefly at each other about what we were doing out here and to eat a snack, quickly, as we were soaked and cold, and then hammered out the last 7 miles to Heaven Hill Farm, Vernon, NJ where we were meeting Ryan's parents. We were a few hours early for our meeting, as there was no point in dillydallying out in the rain.
Despite the weather, the hiking was nice in spots today. We went through a really neat section where they had routed the trail through a wetland area. The trail was an elevated bridge meandering through the cattails and other wetlands, with lots of red-winged blackbirds, swallows and even a deer peeking up through the reeds in one spot.
We are now all clean, wearing cotton clothes and even deodorant (!), having eaten Bertucci's Pizza and salad, done our grocery shopping, and stinking up the place with all our wet stuff. Poor Meghan and Chris! And tomorrow we're not hiking. A day off, how nice :-)

Ryan:
rain
today, it rained. apparently, a tropical storm is passing through the area. but, no matter, because we're hanging out in my sister's apartment. cotton clothes. big meal. and impending good sleep. oh yeah. plus, my whole family is here, which is great, but so much for relaxing. (just kidding, guys) as far as the trail goes, new jersey is so cute. no, really. the trail has these semi-little climbs that makes new jersey think it's like new england. it's like the little brother tagging along. so cute. to paraphrase masa "today is very tired."
today's song - atlantic city, springsteen