Summary: Random campsite: 1512.2 Great Barrington MA 23: 1529 Total miles: 16.8 We were up and about by 6 and even felt pretty good about it. We were slightly put off when five sobos hiked by us as we were getting ready. We did good getting up early and they were already hiking, damn! The trail angel responsible for the gallons of water also showed up to refill them. She didn't seem too interested in talking but we were glad we got to thank her. Our first task of the day was to head downhill for a mile or so. It was steep, but the morning dew made it much more tough. We had to go real slow or we would go real fast, as in too fast, as in we would plummet down the hill. All 3 of us took some spills but nothing too serious. Luckily after the hill we got some flat to make up some time before more hills. The uphill wasn't as slippery, probably because some of the dew had burned off, but then it started pouring and put an end to traction. The salamanders came out en masse to say hello, and we went slipping and stumbling by. Somehow, though, we managed to avoid any broken bones, ankle twists or worse and we carried on. We managed all our miles by 2:30. The rain has stopped but was coming by for another pass. Hitchhiking hadn't really been necessary lately (and was illegal in NY, PA, and NJ), but we needed a ride for three miles today into town. We only waited ten minutes for a French speaking couple to pick us up. They said they couldn't take us all the way to the hotel in Great Barrington, but once they got to asking us questions about the trail, they got us most of the way, and, more importantly, all the way to pizza. We had waited on lunch in the interest of time and town food, so we were starving and devoured a pizza and mozzarella sticks as Dean ate a massive calzone in under 10 minutes. It was impressive. We walked the rest of the way to a much healthier Patch at the Days Inn. There, we cleaned up, Tyler took care of the laundry, and we finished a minor resupply (just two days to get us to Dalton, a town right on the trail in 38 miles).
We got some Thai food after the resupply which essentially took away the rest of our evening since the service was strange and extremely slow. Finally, when we were able to get horizontal, we watched some Great British Baking Challenge on TV followed by some horrible sci fi. Despite the list of to do items, it felt fairly restful since we had managed to get into town by three in the afternoon.
