Day 2: New Shoes

We woke up at 6am, had oatmeal for breakfast and set our clothes and shoes out to dry in the sun. Inspected my feet to find some nasty blisters and that my big toe nail has begun separating from the nail bed (very painful). Turns out my shoes don;t fit properly without orthotics (which lift my arch and shorten my feet, but are hard plastic and uncomfortable so i opted not to bring them) so my toes have been crushed too tightly inside. I usually wear an 8.5 and these were 9's so that is strange. Advice from experienced hikers was that i shouldnt hike until i had new shoes. Well, there is not much around here but a gas station 6 miles away....so....Ellen deHavilland to the rescue! She went to REI and bought size 9 and 9.5 in a different shoe (Keen, has lots of room for toesies) and brought them to me on the trail! I hiked 4 miles in my Crocs to meet up with her. Then we hiked about 6 more miles to a campsite...which was filled with Cub Scouts so we are sleeping (illegally? aka stealth camping) in a field. Our trail...friend Jonny Walker joined us for the end of the hike and we had dinner, star-gazed and listened to some music with him. We are moving slowly with Chad's knees hurting him on downhills, and I can't put pressure on my toe, but we have kept the 10mile/day pace. sSeepy sleepy, goodnight!

Day 1: Bear Mountain and Hudson River

Ellen took us to the trail starting at Bear Mountain (NY) and we got there around 10am. We hiked down Bear Mountain, through a zoo, and across the Bear Mountain Bridge. Ellen did that hike with us (and took lots of pictures!). Then we hiked through rain and thunderstorms for hours. I opted not to wear a raincoat or rain pants because it was sooooo hot. We have met 7 thru-hikers (two of them had lyme disease and still average 16 miles per day). We saw 2 doe, 1 buck, a toad and some chipmunks...and some bears and otters because we walked through a zoo. So, today we hiked 10 miles: across the Hudson, across Route 9, and now we are at the "Graymoor" shelter, with 2 thru-hikers eating some mac and cheese. Good day 1. I'm tired.

...and we're off!

here we go!

Last Meal

Our last meal: yummy breakfast sandwiches. Thank you to the deHavillands for hosting us last night and driving us to the trail head at Bear Mountain Inn!

Mail Drops

8 boxes of food. Chad's mom will be shipping them to post offices near the trail (Thank you!) so we can pick them up. This will allow us to keep our packs light, by only carrying about 4 days worth of food. We will be having oatmeal or granola for breakfast, trail mix and other snacks for lunch, and rice/pasta for dinner. Plenty of Clif bars for inbetween. We are finishing up our tentative schedule for places to spend the night and where to have the mail drops. We leave tomorrow morning!

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mac and cheese and lots of it!

we have been praparing our food for hours and hours. right now we are making vacuum sealed bags of mac and cheese. bought a 1 lb bag of cheddar cheese powder and we are mixing it with evaporated milk and elbow maccaroni. busy busy busy!

Dehydrating foods

We are dehydrating pears, nectarines, strawberries, blueberries and pineapples. Also making some fruit leathers. Thank you Walthers for letting us use your dehydrator!

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