After

Friday October 29th

We wake to pouring rain outside our Quality Inn hotel room in Harper’s Ferry on Friday. We delay leaving as long as we can and go walking out of there right at the 11 AM check out time. We are fully suited up in rain jackets and rain pants, a pack cover for Jeff and our umbrellas. It’s probably the hardest rain we’ve seen since the day we flew into Maine. We walk a short distance to the ATC headquarters to wait for the StonyBrook Farm 12 Tribes members to come get us. We feel sad thinking about Collette and Dakota out on the trail in the rain. While we wait we get our photos taken by an ATC volunteer. All the AT hikers coming through town are supposed to come here to register and get there photo taken. The photos go into a big 3 ring binder which then serves as a record of all of the hikers to have come through. We were the 152nd and 153rd South-bounders to come through town this year. I would have thought there would be more than that. We end up waiting several hours for a ride but don’t mind as we are grateful for any ride in this pouring rain. Our ride shows up after one and it’s one older man driving an old 4 Runner that is a vehicle shared by the community members. Already inside the car are Collette and Dakota! They ran into the shuttle man at the gas station where the trail crosses the next road south of here. He offered them and ride and they were happy for the opportunity to get out of the rain. It’s about a 20 minute drive there. It surprises us that it’s a normal thing for the community members to come and pick up hikers free of charge but are glad for it, as the farm will be a nice place for us to have a day of rest. 

We make it to the farm and store at 2:30 just in time, they close at 3 and don’t open again until Sunday because Saturday is their Sabbath. We order the veggie burgers we’ve been dreaming of, since the Yellow Deli in Rutland. They are good, but sadly not as good as we remember. It doesn’t even seem like the same recipe but I was under the assumption that all of the communities used the same recipes. After we’ve eaten we head over to our accommodations. They have built 3 little dry cabins in the field between their barn and main house just for the hikers. Inside of each little cabin are 4 bunks beds, a dresser, a chair and an extension cord for electricity. Each of us couples get our own cabin. Just up the hill is another little cabin with a porch full or outdoor furniture and inside there are showers, bathrooms, a washing machine, a microwave, a coffee pot and a table.  They have several other houses on the property to house all of the 40 or so community members. We are just down the road from the farm market. There are cows and chickens and lots of nice big trees on the property and we are surrounded by their farm fields. The community members are very friendly and welcoming and don’t hesitate to invite us to their nightly religious gathering and their Friday night fish dinner. We go to both. 

It is my moms birthday today. She turns 70. All along she has wanted to come with my sisters and visit us on the trail for her birthday. Months ago before we left, Harper’s Ferry was mentioned. We had no idea where we would be, and planning anything became too much work, so it was called off. It’s funny that we ended up in Harper’s Ferry on her birthday. Really we should have been much farther along, but we are not super hikers and should have known better! I am glad that no one came though as it would have been a real downer of a day to be celebrating! The rain continues pouring heavily until about 3, then tapers off, but it remains cloudy and cold all afternoon. 

Saturday October 30th

We are invited for the morning gathering today. The community members gather each morning and each evening and for religious song and dance and bible study. It’s interesting to observe. It seems about half the community is made up of children, with each couple having an average of 4 kids. After the gathering we are again invited to eat in the main house. It’s a self serve cold breakfast because they don’t believe in working on the Sabbath, so they make preparations in advance to ensure no one works today. Breakfast consists of bananas, watermelon, and banana cake with homemade yogurt on top. We spend the afternoon resting, doing laundry, taking showers, going for a walk and working on the blog for me. In the evening we return to the gathering then go to the main house for vegetable soup and bread. We are given our soup in advance of everyone else and kind of feel like we need to be done before they eat. They must hold the Sabbath dinner as sacred and don’t want outsiders involved. We are unsure but feel a little weird about being there at all! We are grateful for the soup though, eating it quickly and heading back to our cabin!

Sunday October 31st

Our friends Jeff and Terry happen to be in the area visiting a friend, so today they come get us. The farm in Hillsboro is just a half hour drive from where they have a hotel room in Reston, Virginia. They take us sight seeing in Washington, DC for the day, then drop us off at Dulles airport for a rental car. We have a great time seeing all the monuments and parks of Washington DC. I never knew it was a National Park Service managed area. It must be a great job being a landscaper for the park service here! We do a lot of walking today, according to Terry’s GPS watch we do 9 miles in 4 hours! As we walk we can see the remnants of high water. All of the rain on Friday caused a lot of flooding on the east coast! We are glad we waited until Sunday because the parking is free in DC on Sundays and there is no traffic and we had the added bonus of allowing the flooding to recede. We don’t visit any of the museums because we don’t have much time. We figure maybe we’ll plan ahead on our return trip to stay in town a couple nights and go to some museums. 

I got a really good deal on a rental car through some shady 3rd party company called Car Rental 8. It’s kind of like Hotwire or Priceline in that you don’t know which company you’ll be getting the car with. We end up with Thrifty and it all turns out just fine. We get a Ford Fiesta for 8 days for around $475. We are very pleased to have our own transportation which we will drop off in Newark when we fly home. We head for Delaware, stopping at a Cracker Barrel along the way and arriving around 9 to Jeff’s brothers house to see the aftermath of Halloween.  

11/01 - 11/07/2021

We spend two nights with Joe and Ashley and their kids. It’s nice to see where they live and what their new life in a Lewes has been like after years in Alaska. Ashley grew up here and they are living in her grandma’s house currently. It must feel like home to her. They live close to a canal and the beach as well as several parks and within walking distance of downtown. We especially enjoy visiting the beaches and riding the bike paths to Cape Henlopen State Park, where there are coastal dunes. 

When we leave Delaware we take the Cape May ferry to New Jersey and visit several beaches on the way back to Jeff’s parents house including Cape May, the wildwood boardwalk and Sandy Hook. 

During our time in New Jersey we take a few locals hikes and even return to the AT at High Point and Bear Mountain. We also go back to Warwick and visit Allan and Kate. We have great weather all week and are so happy to have our own car!

11/09 - 11/18/2021

Once back in San Diego we begin our usual routine of the leisure life, going walking at the beach, lounging in parks, taking short hikes, caring for the house and yard, going for short walks around the neighborhood with Luna the dog and I resume cooking. Amazingly there is a heat wave for the first week we are home and we experience temperatures in the 90s while on the AT where we would have been it’s snowing! 

Returning to the life of leisure is no problem for us. It’s actually pretty amazing how quickly and easily we can transition back to laziness! Some hikers experience post trail depression because they are no longer walking all day every day and getting the feel good chemicals in their body that come from that. We didn’t have a problem last year after the PCT and seem to be fine this time around too. I wonder if the depression for many hikers is more about losing their all day every day social interaction. So many hikers go in big groups, but we never have so we aren’t missing anything now. 

I had been a little worried about post trail weight gain. I gained a lot of weight after the PCT. My metabolism was all screwed up and for awhile after getting off the trail my appetite was out of control. Once I got over all the cravings and started even eating a normal amount of food my weight stayed high. It took months for my metabolism to normalize and I never got back to my pre trail weight! This time around it doesn’t seem to be an issue. I don’t have a ravenous appetite and have been perfectly happy with smaller portions of healthy foods. We never seemed to be deprived on the AT. We had so much access to fresh food, restaurants, towns and grocery stores. We were always carrying more food than we needed and never got depleted. It was different on the PCT. It was hard to ever have enough food and resupplies were always at least a few days apart and often a resupply meant going to a small convenience store, like a gas station or picking up a box you sent yourself. We were often lucky if there was any fresh food to be had at resupply stops. For all of the reasons I am not suffering adjusting to  a normal eating schedule and I am so happy for that.  

It takes me over a week to get around to finishing my work on the blog. I delayed any work on it by spending all of my free time reading a new historical fiction book about the Great Depression. Once I finished the book, I still wasn’t motivated to do any blog work, but today we were forced to stay home all day while some plumbing work was done. I got really bored and finished all of my posts. I’m really proud that I kept at it and finished, because I can’t say the same about my PCT blog!

It was a really hard decision to make, deciding to go back to work for the winter and finish the trail next year. It’s really easy to get caught up in the drive to finish a thru hike, but thru hiking is not for everyone. Now that we’ve had a few weeks off the trail to think about it, we are very happy with our decision. We were beginning to feel run down and even a little jaded. We will get to go back with a fresh perspective and really enjoy ourselves at the more leisurely rate we prefer. We don’t like feeling like we have a deadline. We will also have the added benefits of getting to go back when it’s warmer when and with more daylight too!

Our photo for the record at the ATC with our makeshift trail names! We continued to be bagered for not having trail names, nearly every day we had to hear it from people we met. So finally we named each other! I think the names are fitting of our style of hiking and never making the big miles! We always get distracted having too much fun to walk all day every day!

Pouring rain outside the ATC.

Cabin 2 at StonyBrook Farm

Looking down the hill from the bathroom cabin to the grouping of 3 hiker cabins.

The town of Hillsboro where the farm is located is a beautiful little historic town full of old stone houses. The side walks were all being redone in brick work while we were there complete with a masonry wall fence for each house. 

Cows outside the hiker cabins and the bathroom cabin can be seen just up the hill. 

The farm market where veggie burgers can be had, along with all of the usual Yellow Deli delights!

Jeff, Terry and Jeff walking towards the Lincoln Memorial!

Jeff and Terry in front of the reflection pool and the Washington Monument. We love you guys! Thanks for helping us!!

World War II Memorial 

The Capital 

The White House 

Rehoboth Beach boardwalk, Delaware. Joe and his little daughter Aspen are in the distance in this photo. 

Cape May State Beach. There is a historic light house here and some sort of old army bunker. 

Photo opportunity at Wildwood. You can see roller coasters behind me. They have turned this beach into an amusement park! There was a water park too!

The boardwalk seems to go for miles with endless food stalls selling the kind of stuff you’d expect to find at the state fair! It was all closed and boarded up, except for one restaurant called the White Dolphin. The owner of the White Dolphin sat out front on the boardwalk and sang karaoke with a microphone to all the local runners and bikers out for their daily exercises. It almost convinced us to stop for lunch!

Another photo opportunity. It must be rare to get this shot with no other people in it!

The view of NYC from Sandy Hook. This was a national Historic park because there used to be a military base here.

On a local hike by Jeff’s parents house. Hawk Rock at the Ramapo Reservation. You can see NYC from here too.

We always have to visit a bagel shop when we’re in New Jersey. The multi colored bagel is especially fun! They even had some vegan toppings at the Bagel Emporium, hummus, tomato and hash browns!

Overlooking the Hudson River on Bear Mountain. We took a selfie on this bench with Kieran last time we were here!

Back at High Point, the view of the monument from Marcia Lake.

Ooh a cool new machine in the Newark airport. It’s a Chicago based company and they are in lots of airports, hospitals and universities. They do home delivery too!

How could I resist?? You can order in their app scan your phone and the food is dispensed without you ever having to touch the machine!

Limited edition airplane napkins! When will this ever end?? Maybe most people will choose to wear masks on airplanes from now on even after mask mandates are lifted!

Sunday in mid November at our favorite beach. It’s so busy you’d think it’s summer!