Meeting for Connecticut – The Trek

Gathering along the trail

Guardian and I shared camp the last night in New York. We left together in the morning, but Gaudian was determined to arrive in Kent, Connecticut, at a certain time. My foot injury was still holding me back, so we exchanged numbers and he moved on without me.

Later that morning, my foot started to hurt. I decided to rest and stopped at the top of a small rise. Some fallen trees and logs begged me to sit on them and I agreed.

good news

A few minutes pass and I hear the sounds of a hiker climbing the hill behind me. I looked and saw red hair and a black suit. He often compared hikers to cartoon characters; We always wear the same clothes, so it’s easy to recognize each other at a glance. I immediately knew it was good news and waited for her to join me at the top of the climb.

GoodNews arrived and sat down as she was ready to take her own break. We exchanged greetings and shared stories from our last meeting. She met my group without me and learned about my foot problems. I told him about my struggles while touring New York and my hopes of catching up with the group later today. He said he stayed with them in Pawling, New York, the night before and that they should be right in front of me.

This was good news, from GoodNews. While speaking with GoodNews we heard sounds of movement on the road behind us. More hikers arrived.

Meeting

We were surprised to see Fresh, Ranger, Broken Ass Turtle, and Mash climbing up behind us. The group had left early, but they thought I would stop at a deli for breakfast, so they stopped by. I skipped the deli trying to catch up with them, and so I kept going.

Stories were exchanged again and we sat down to talk for a while. GoodNews left, sensing that this was going to continue for quite some time. Which happened when more people came to meet us!

new faces

During our meeting a large group of high school girls and their companions passed by. The adults stopped and asked us questions about the hikes and if we had any tips for the kids. They didn’t have many questions, but they seemed to enjoy the opportunity to use adult language when saying the name Broken Ass Turtles, which I thought was fun.

After they left, we heard movement again and a new face arrived.

Pigsty

«Everyone at Trail this year sucks,» says PigPen. I have to admit it; It was a great opening line. Realizing his mistake, «but you guys seem cool!»

He proceeds to tell us how alone he felt on Trail this year, not that he’s alone, but that other people don’t seem to sympathize with him. I kept it to myself, but telling everyone they suck was probably part of the problem. Just a hunch. After the awkward introduction, he told us how he got dumped the night before and left early in the morning without saying goodbye, feeling this was «a very cowboy move.» He said he sent her a photo of the sunrise he saw at Nuclear Lake, “which was very cowboy.”

I was reminded of Jeffery Dean Thomas’s character in Riot. The character wore the generic government secret agent outfit that every movie wears. He acted like his other character, Neegan, but kept referring to himself as a cowboy. Which made it obvious that he must have had no idea what a cowboy was.

We hear movement again and she quickly gets up and leaves saying, “I have to go, it won’t be very cowboy if she catches up to me!”, and runs away down the path.

smooth rock

We meet SmoothRock, so named because it doesn’t use toilet paper on Trail. We talked to her for a while and shared our interaction with PigPen which seemed to amuse her. Interaction with SmoothRock was excellent, although less entertaining than PigPen. They both seemed like good people, but apparently opposites attract.

New York to Connecticut

We spent most of the morning sitting on these logs along the trail while meeting the different people who passed by. So after we had lunch, we walked all afternoon and crossed into Connecticut.

I know he was happy here, but he seemed to hide it well!

We walked to a large campsite along the Ten-Mile River and the Housatonic River. Everyone we met that day, other than the high school students, also camped here.

I headed to the river, took a bath and did some cowboy laundry (wash clothes in the river). This was the first time I had a chance to clean since I was last with the group. This was the longest I had gone without showering or doing laundry, and I was starting to get irritated and get sores from it. Rinsing in the river helped considerably.

Kent, Connecticut

The next morning we walked to Kent. The group passed me. I was taking my time because I wasn’t going to hurt my foot worse. He was finally starting to feel normal again.

I messaged them when I got into town and they told me about the supplier, the grocery store, and a shoe store in town. This left me with the impression that they had already done all their shopping and would soon be ready to leave town. They said they were at a restaurant and I headed over to join them.

When I arrived I saw that they were at a table for 4 and they were already eating. To be honest, I felt left out. Which worked in my favor because I took one look at the menu and my wallet screamed in terror when I saw the prices. I told them I couldn’t afford those prices and headed to IGA to resupply and have lunch at their deli. I had lunch and returned to the supplier to charge my electronics before leaving.

See yellow

I learned two things in Kent.

First, my feet felt much better in shoes at this point. This became clear to me after I walked into town without much pain. Then I limped around the city, in a lot of pain, in flip flops.

Secondly, I tend to buy too many drinks when I get into town. I bought two mineral waters and two Powerades. I drank them both before I left town and I had never had to pee so badly in my life. The provider didn’t have a bathroom and my foot hurt so much I didn’t want to go out of my way to find one in town.

So, I limped out of town trying to think about anything other than going to the bathroom. I kept looking at the bushes and thinking about going, but I was worried I would get in trouble. Another hiker, Jimbo Poppins, mentioned being fined for public urination for this in another city. It’s funny that before hiking most of us never thought about urinating in public, but here I was. It also occurred to me that if I stop and pee in a bush in town I might get into legal trouble, but if I pee my pants people will just be judgmental.

I got to the woods and used the bathroom 3 times in a 5 minute period and most of that time was spent urinating.

After Kent

I arrived at camp in the afternoon and the group met me about an hour later. Turns out they had a lot of things to do in town after lunch. We set up camp in the dark, which was annoying, but would eventually become the norm as the days grew shorter.

The next day we left around 10 in the morning. I didn’t like this, but since I’m a procrastinator, I complained a little, but I wasn’t willing to do anything about it. We walked during the day and night to reach the camp. Switch, Anaconda and GoodNews camped with us tonight.

Private appreciation

I liked the toilet at our chosen campsite. It had a seat, but no walls. At first I remember being upset when the toilet didn’t have a door. Now here I was excited when they didn’t have walls. It was open, the air was fresh, you could see because there was so much light, and if anyone wanted to watch while I relieved myself, well, that’s their problem. The Camino really changes a person.

The last day

The next morning, my foot felt mostly normal. I still had some pain that would stay with me for the rest of my trip (and several weeks after returning home), but it was manageable and I felt like I could walk at full strength for the first time in a long time. The state ended with the first notable rise we had had in a long time. It wasn’t bad, but compared to most of the climbs since…Virginia, this one stood out. We camped in a VERY crowded shelter on Bear Mountain. I believe a men’s group with a church was on a weekend outing with their youth. There were a couple of families there too. We managed to set up camp and enjoyed our last night in Connecticut.