A Limp in the Woods (Day 93)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 93: Tuesday, June 25th, 2013
Wit’s End to Glenwood, NJ (and then Rock Hill, NY via car) = 7 miles
Miles to date: 1,349

A Step Aside

It wasn’t tough to tell we’d quaffed excess fermented juice last night. Not to us and probably not to anyone else. To us, the steep-sloping lawn behind the Wits End Tavern was hardly perceptible, forming the ideal sleepscape. (Yes, we’ve been behind bars.) Only when the sun got up did I realize we’d attempted to slumber propped against a grassy wall. But we were successful, so no complaints. I was only faintly hungover and stirred before the others, who’d fully fainted.   

Thankfully, it was to be a terse trek on this third-month mark of my odyssey, which would work out even more idyllically since the airborne bloodsuckers had already begun homing in on our skin. There were just seven miles to our target, the Pochuck Valley Farm Market and Deli, a name I enjoyed immensely. Pochuck, says po’ Chuck.

It was there, Backstreet pledged, a guy called Goober would whisk us from our dirt church. We’d escape the underworld, the overstory, and were to head to his house on Lake Louise Marie for a day-plus of nothingness. The boys (and girl) were back in town.

Backstreet befriended Goober during the teething phase of his hike--Goobs had been attempting a thru-hike, but injuries got the better of him--and the two hit it off. He vowed we would too. “I don’t doubt it,” Gator replied. “With a handle like Goober, he’s our sort.”

The going was easy (though anything but straightforward--this is, after all, the Appalachian Trail). The path had taken a drastic turn toward the southeast yesterday, deviating from its usual northeasterly trend. But, just as it always is, all one needs to do to hike the AT is connect the white blazes. One after the other, until the paint, or the will to trudge on, runs dry.

It took us three hours to make it to the market and an equal lump of time for Goober to show. The delay was fine by us; the deli served the finest fare known. Plus, a local driving instructor, who we’d met during the mile-long side-trip, put an Andrew Jackson toward our tab. We learned this only when the cashier informed us, after he’d come and gone. His chauffeur/pupil, a smiley sixteen year-old girl, didn’t know what to make of us--or what to make of her teacher.

We’d forgotten what real food tasted like and the effect it can produce--enjoyment, not just energy. Eating on trail is a perfunctory deed--grind the jaw, force a swallow. Joints like the Pochuck Market confirm there’s more to eating than sustenance. And that you never have to travel far to find good eats; in our case, just 1,349 miles. I assured the others my kale-pear-blueberry salad was worth murdering for. “‘Justifiable homicide,’ the judge and jury would proclaim, if a salad sampling were admissible in court. 

By late day the lot of us were doing jackknives and can-openers and front-flips and cannonballs and, in my case belly-flops, into Lake Louise Marie. We did our best not to sink upon impact, flailing around like fish out of water. It’d been a spell since we could play in any sort of liquid. I mean really play, unlike that keep-your-head-above-water-at-all-costs teaser in Lake Marcia yesterday. What a treat!

“CANNONBALL!”

Yep. A skipping stones sort of day. Had we had hammocks, we’d’ve happily hung around. Instead, we sat around. Goober even owns a Jacuzzi; we sat around in it too. At one point he got up out of the tub and announced he had to go pee. After he’d gone, Gator said, “Oops, I guess we’re not supposed to pee in here.” The laughter lingered.

PS: I doubt I’ll be journaling for the next day or two. But if so, reader(s) will be pleased to know it won’t be much--a temporary retiring from diarying. (I type this under the misguided assumption that there may be one other reader than me.)