Crocs at Rutland, Vt. 1704 Miles

 August 2  Autumn Inn  Bennington Vt.  1610 Miles
Walked 10 miles to Bennington, VT and called the local motel. I was
picked up and taken to the motel for seven dollars. I walked a few miles to the Post Office and picked up my winter pants that I had sent home a couple of months ago. I bought some food and resupply at the convenience store and went back to the motel and slept and watched Good Will Hunting on the TV.  Great movie. It moved me enough so that I called Terrie and tell her how much I appreciated her.


August 3  Goddard Shelter Vt. 1620 Miles
Peter, a Taiwanese-American hiker, and I bargained with the Indian shuttle driver over the seven dollars again. Persistent bastard. Then the driver took us to the trailhead where I met Jaws, an ex-Army officer, and began hiking with him.
Jaws, despite the name, is a thin bearded guy thirty-something who eats a lot and so that is how he got his name.  He is with a group of ex-army folks who are out walking the trail in the name of PTSD veterans. He was a bodyguard for a General in Afghanistan and served a number of years.
Today his back was hurting him. He twisted it when he slid on a rock. Sounds like a backstrain. He was walking slower which was about my normal pace.
It was a clear day and muddy. Vermont is famous for its mud as Pennsylvania is famous for its rocks. I learned to just let the mud cover my shoe and walk though most of it. Sure beats walking on point rocks. And actually, it didn't seem that much to me at all. Perhaps more after a rain.

We got to the top of a hill and Jaws met a couple who were a part of his group. They suggested he go to a service road and get picked up and taken to a clinic back in Bennington. He would have to go back the way we came. What a drag.  I left him there and went to toward the shelter with the couple behind me.
Then it began to thunder and I began booking it up the hill, practically running. I made it to the top of the hill and the shelter and Peter was there and several others. Then the couple came in. Then it began to pour.
I set up my bag in the 8 person shelter and then Jaws showed up drenched. I let him have a short swig of a small bottle of whiskey that I carry and gave him some pain pills. He planned to go down tomorrow if it was worse.
The couple and a few more people decided to leave and walk five miles to the next shelter after the rain let up. And then 15 minutes later it poured again. You know they must have gotten drenched.

More people came in that night, NoBOs, South bounders, SoBOs and Long Trail people. It was packed and I had to step over people when I crawled out off the platform the next morning.


August 4  Story Spring Shelter Vt. 1629 Miles
Today I walked just nine miles to the shelter. It was a wet and rainy day. At the shelter I stayed with Unfiltered, Five Year Plan, and Pine Cone. Unfiltered is a proud and outgoing Vermont dairy farmer doing the Long Trail that goes to the Canadian border and Pine Cone, a happy 23 year old girl, is also a NOBO on the Long Trail. Five Year Plan, a guy in his late fifties, is flip-flopping the Appalachian Trail, going south from Harper's Ferry after he reaches Katahdin, Me.
If he does that then he won't hit Georgia until November at the earliest. Good luck to him.


August 5 William B. Douglas Shelter Vt. 1644 Miles
Today we walked up the five mile Stratton Mountain to the summit on which Benton MacKaye was inspired to propose the creation of the AT. It was a cloudy and overcast day and a after a few hours of climbing I saw little view at the top. I met Unfiltered and Pine Cone up there and they wanted to climb the tower. I knew they wouldn;t see much and so conitinued down the mountain to Stratton Pond Shelter where I planned to stay the night.
When I got there it was about 2 PM and several men in their sixties and seventies were staying there and doing some day hiking. Pine Cone came in and we decided to press on to William Douglas Shelter.
I passed a little lake, climbed some rocky areas and five miles later landed at the Shelter. This shelter  was .5 miles down a soggy grassy overgrown landscape on footboards. The shelter itself had been built originally in 1958. We found a very small pool of water from a spring and I thought it was potable. Then five year Plan came in.
Unfiltered filled me in on the use of robotics in the dairy industry: how robots make it so that the cattle can milk went they want to, rather than forcing them to milk, and much more safely, and much more thoroughly. He said Europe had been doing it for years but the FDA had stopped robotics in the USA, mostly because of job loss he said.
Then Jimmy showed up. Jimmy was a very thin high school senior who said his parents dropped him off and he walked to the shelter. He was tenting he said. He acted insecure and asked if we would like some fruit. He had two apples and two tomatoes.
That is all he had. What are you living on, Pine Cone asked. Apparently he had been staying at the shelter for a number of days and going into Manchester Center, VT every so often. Pine Cone and I looked at each other and raised our eyes.
We told Jimmy he could lie beside us on the platform that night. But in the middle of the night I woke up and saw that he was gone.

August 6 Green Mtn House Manchester Center Vt. 1650 Miles
Where is the kid, Five Year Plan asked when we awoke this morning.
I guess he went back to his tent, I said.
Then, under the platform, squeezed in a two foot space, Jimmy popped his head out and said,"I'm here." What an unusual person.
I left early, after Pine Cone, and headed off toward Manchester Center. I was ready for a shower and I needed to resupply.
Pine Cone and I hitched into Manchester Center easily and I resupplied at Shaw's, an upscale grocer and then met Pine Cone and Five Year Plan at the outfitters. I bought a long sleeve shirt. It was getting chilly out there.
I went to the laundrymat and washed my backpack. Long overdue.
Then I regrouped with Cone and Plan and we called for a shuttle from the Green Mtn. House. I was pleasantly surprised to see a well-kept, clean and organized home where for a nice Vermont price Ihad access to the kitchen, shower, laundry, and TV.
That night Five Year Plan and I ordered a pizza delivered and we watched a mountain climbing movie on video.
August 7  Lost Pond Shelter  Vt. 1665 Miles
Woke up to a Fruit Loop breakfast and cheese sandwich at the hostel and then the three of us and some others were shuttled to the trailhead.
Today we walked the four miles to the top of Bromley Mountain, a ski lift area, and took pictures and enjoyed the views. Then we 12 more miles to the shelter.
August 8 Minerva Hinchley Shelter 1680 Miles
Walked fifteen miles to the shelter. It rained sporadically and I met Unfiltered there. He had skipped town earlier. It was good to see him. Then Pine Cone came in and a few others and we settled in, drying are wet shoes on the metal roof of the shelter.

 August 9 Rutland, Vt. Yellow Deli Hostel  1700 Miles
I had planned to do 10 miles and stay at the Governor Clement Shelter if I arrived late. But I got there at noon and decided to press on. Pine Cone wanted to do 20 miles and go into town to meet her boyfriend and go to a Greg Allman tribute festival in Pennsylvania.
I pressed on and then after climbing the steep four mile climb to the top of a mountain and meeting up with Pine Cone who had been ahead of me all day, we descended together and hit a thunderstorm and walked in the rain for eight miles.
But then the sun came out and by the time I got to the road to Rutland I had dried out some, I met Crayola along the way, a twenty-something with purple hair and lip rings, and we hitched into town with some guy who had too many brews before picking us up.
We made it alright though in downtown Rutland and were dropped off at the Yellow Deli Hostel, a place where a Christian group puts up hikers and very kindly encourages them to leave the trials and tribulations of this society and join them in a community of peace and love and fellowship.

There were about 30 hikers at the hostel and three rooms with bunks. The Group were very accommodating, not charging a fee but asking for donations, and providing bunk, laundry, and shower and breakfast at no charge. Some called them a Cult. But aren't all non-mainstream religious groups called Cults, a way to ostracize them? But they weren't pushy about their need for new members otherwise hikers would not come there. But they were not insistent that you leave either.

After eating at the Deli next door to their Hostel, and listening to a threesome play some nice Medieval/Celtic sounding flute and accordion music, I got a bunk and went to sleep. I was tired and thought I would stay two days.
During the night, the Deli's ice machine kept dropping ice. I'm moving to a different room in the morning.

August 10 Rutland, Vt. Yellow Deli Hostel  1700 Miles

Today I picked up a few things at the Walmart, in walking distance, took a bus to Killington, Vt and picked up my wife's care package, did laundry, blogged some at the library, and helped clean dishes at the Deli, doing a little service work.
I moved to a different room, bunking near Five Year Plan, and I ate a sub sandwich and had some chocolate milk.

 August 11 Rutland, Vt.  Rutland Regional Hospital  1704 Miles

I woke up early in the dark and packed my backpack out in the hiker's lounge at the hostel. Then I went downstairs and over to the Deli for breakfast. On the way I noticed that my heart was racing and that I was short of breath. 

This had happened before, about nine years ago, when I was out at a little party on a lake on a hot summers day. I went swimming and lay on a raft in the sun and then after climbing on the landing I began to feel dizzy and faint and I lay down  and people had me elevate my legs. They said I was turning pale and that my lips were blue. 

After fifteen minutes, I felt fine but they were doctors and nurses and insisted that I take an ambulance to the hospital. The doctor there said I had a sticky heart valve and that I should have regular heart checkups. There was no cure except surgery and my case was mild and he didn't know what to do about it. 

Great I thought. Now I have to pay for a large medical bill and in turn received nebulous and cloudy treatment and solutions. 

So at the Deli, I lay down on a couch, elevated my feet, and massaged my neck artery. After about fifteen minutes my heart slowed down to normal and I went in for an egg vegetable  dish.

I ate and drank some coffee with my fellow hikers and then took my pack to the back of the Deli and caught a bus to the trail head at Rt. 4.

I found the trail off the highway and set off down it following the white blazes as I usually do. It was a warm clear day and I was making good time. I expected to see a National Park in four miles accoring to my AWOL guidebook but after four miles I hadn't seen it or signs of it. I must have been eyes to the ground and missed the turn off.

The trail went up and over many hills but for them most part it was moderate terrain and I was making good time. I saw signs that mentioned the Long Trail and I knew that the Long Trail and the Appalachian trail were together for a long while. I was expecting a split pretty soon. I kept following white blazes.

Then I met a girl going SOBO and we stopped and chatted. She said she was hiking the Long Trail south and I told her I was doing the AT to Maine. 

But you are not on the AT she said.

What do you mean? I said. 

This is the Long Trail.

I checked my Guthook app. Sure enough I had walked twelve miles on the Long Trail, the Wrong Trail. I turned around and walked with the girl twelve miles back, going as fast as I could so that I could get to a camp before dark.

I got back to where the AT split off, I had missed these poorly marked signs, and turned onto the AT and walked four miles to the National Park where I hoped to set up a tent.

When I got there I felt exhausted. I started unpacking my bag. 

Then my heart started racing again. Racing madly. I could barely catch my breath. I sat down at a picnic table and lay back on a bench. But it still not calm the heart racing after a ten minutes. 

Then some campers came in and I asked them to call the Ranger. The Ranger came about 15 minutes later and we gathered up my stuff on the picnic table, put it in my backpack, and she took me in her cart to the ranger station and I lay down on a couch. I was feeling cold and they took out my sleeping bag and covered me. 

Fifteen minutes passed and my heart was still racing and they called 911. An ambulance arrived, they put me on oxygen, I told them not to give me a heart pumping. My heart was beating at 200 beats per minute. I called my wife and she told them about my former episode.

Then about ten minutes after giving me oxygen my heart went back to normal. I asked them to call it quits, saying that i was ok and that I could walk and felt ok. But they insisted they strap me down and take me to the hospital. Which they did.

I arrived at the hospital and they had a number of people talk to me and I realized my wallet was not in my backpack when the registrar showed up for billing info. It must be in my bag at the park.

They wheeled me up to the ICU and all night I was hooked up with saline tubes and had my blood drawn a number of times, feeling the occasional squeeze of the blood pressure strap on my arm.