It's pretty cool who you meet when you stand on the side of the road with your thumb out. When you are captive in their car and you put your trust that they aren't carrying a shotgun and a shovel in their trunk. And they are trusting you to not have a pistol and bottle of lye in your backpack.
I love hiking the trails through the woods, but I will admit, trees begin to look the same after a while. I took lots and lots of pictures of streams and trees and fungus and all manner of things early on the Trail. But, I have less to take pictures of now, it seems. It will simply look the same as pictures I've taken before. But when you hitch hike, you meet all manner of new people with new stories and new opportunities to learn. Don't worry, I'm still hiking the trail under the power of my own two legs, but I'm also adding in several opportunities to hitch-hike. Yeah, I probably won't hit the 2000 mile mark. Ah well. I heard from another non-purist hiker today that being a purist is just another way to stroke one's ego. Perhaps.
Yesterday, I met a mother. She had two sons in her car. One of her "sons" was a boy who lived in the Bronx and was part of a program to come to Vermont in the summer to experience the out of doors.
A few days ago, I got a ride from a lawyer who loved sailing. I learned a LOT about different boats and how to sail and also of a great little pub in Scotland that can only be gotten to by hiking or sailing. New destination on my bucket list. I also learned the Odie has a love of sailing. Who knew?
I stayed with a trail angel last night, and had a lovely 2 1/2 hour conversation with her about all manner of random things. She fed me lettuce and cukes from her own garden. She fed me homemade bread, homemade granola, and homemade yogurt for breakfast, along with rhubarb that came out of her neighbor's garden. She showed me her compost bucket and also pictures of her when she did some community theater.
When I was at the Inn at Long Trail (Killington VT), I schmoozed with the locals and hikers at McGrath's Pub. Met a great pair - Yonder and MoonCall. They were hiking the Long Trail, and I think I could have hung out with them for years - what good souls! In fact, Yonder gave me a new trail name. I asked him what he'd name me if I didn't already have a trail name, and he suggested "Phoenix" because he sensed that I'd risen above some ashes of my past. It's amazing what a good Guiness will tell about another person! And, no, I'm not changing my name - but it was the 1st trail name suggested for me in 1700 miles!
When Odie and I tried leaving Inn at Long Trail, we found some rock climbers. The gal wore the same size shoes as me, so I borrowed her climbing shoes and harness and climbed the 5.7 difficulty (moderate difficulty) of Deer Leap. I was successful!!!! Woot! While I was climbing the sheer rock face, Odie ended up slipping on a boulder getting a picture of me and gave himself a good goose egg bruise on his thigh. It ended up we only hiked about 2.5 miles where we found a private wedding going on at a lodge. We ended up talking to several of the wedding party, and tried to stay out of the pictures of the bride and groom. Then, we hitched back to the Inn at Long Trail and camped out across the street. Schmoozed more at the pub, and I got the opportunity to buy a drink for the threesome that let me climb on their ropes.
We hitched with a section hiker up to Woodstock VT, and stayed 2 nights with a guy who just lets hikers sleep in his yard. We ended up jumping in his truck to go "get breakfast" right when we got dropped off. What we ended up doing was helping to clean up from a community dance the night before to help save the local community store. Pretty cool to meet the locals. Saw their local community theater space. Then, back to Daniel's house to cook all day for the warrior hikers coming in that night and partying with them and other locals. Needless to say, we didn't hike. Well, we hitch-HIKED 23 miles that day just to clean and cook :-). Hitching is still "hiking". At least, that is what I'm telling myself. I'm still heading north - that was my goal all along, right?
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