Tuesday, July 10, 2012

A Cool Dip in the Lake

This morning, we had a rather somber reminder on the trail, as we passed this small memorial, marking the site where a hiker had died right on the trail. It did not explain how, only asked for prayers.


We hiked on, and soon met SOS slack packing in the opposite direction. He said if we hurried, his wife was at the road with trail magic! We hiked to the road and found her in a parking lot with ice cold Gatorades - a real treat! Her name is hiker momma and she is shuttling him all the way to Maine!

At the same parking lot was a small rock building with a faucet on the outside wall that is free for hikers to use. We really needed the fresh water, so we filled our bottles. The faucet was about 4 feet off the ground, so of course, to us it was close enough to a shower to go ahead and wash our hair under it. This was all on a small gravel road, so not much traffic went through here, so we didn't attract too much attention. It was already so hot, that this really cooled us off and felt great!

We hiked on and soon came to a real pretty lake called Farnstock State Park, which had a beach and concession area. Matter of fact, the beach was made of sand trucked in from Jones Beach, which is the beach on Long Island that Keith grew up going to. We swam, and got burgers, fries, and ice cream. This was another great opportunity to help beat the heat.







We hiked past the old rock building pictured above, and I just thought it was really cool. We also hiked over the top of a mountain that had a 9/11 memorial painted on it.


That evening we camped at a tenting area, and had the treat of actually sleeping on a lawn (soft!) and having neighbors - Jaybird, Aquablaze, Shorts and Phoenix Rising, and of course, our constant companion, Swamprat. This tenting area had a picnic table and water pump, which was really nice.


- Steady and F100

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