Greetings from NYC?

While I suppose this might come as a shock, it is true. In the middle of my journey through the foothills of Appalachia, I have ventured into one of the largest cities in the world, New York City! While I have only been in the city for a few hours now, I can say for sure that I am in a somewhat of sensory overload. I came from a place where I only need walk in a straight line, everyone smells bad, there are only a few people I see each day, in other words, a place drastically different from NYC. I did find one thing somewhat similar, however. Jessica and I went to the top of the Empire State Building, and the views up there reminded me much of the views from mountains such as Washington and Kathadin (if you take away all of the buildings and replace them with wilderness).

It has been nice taking a break from the routine of the trail. After getting rained on for the better part of the afternoon on Monday, we got picked up by Wolfman and Stoker (who had gone into the city earlier to surprise their families) and taken to Stoker's house. There, we got to watch Monday Night Football, and sleep on soft cushions, after a feast of pies (that's Jersey for pizza). It was heavenly. The best part came, however, on Tuesday, when I went to pick Jessica up from the airport! It was incredible to see her, and it is so nice to be spending time with her now, even though she sometimes has a hard time looking at me due to my new physique, as I look like a different person than the one she dropped off at the airport 2 months ago!

We came out of the woods about 6 miles from the New Jersey border, which is great news, because the state of New York is a pretty crappy state to hike through on the AT. The trail is generally in ill repair, with trash strewn about, loose rock everywhere, and pointless ups and downs (PUDs in trail talk) abound throughout the state. In other words, we can't wait to get into New Jersey, a state that several NOBOs we talked to claimed as their favorite. As we get into Jersey, the hills go from rolling, to non-existent, at least until Maryland or Virginia, so the next few hundred miles should fly by, as we typically average 20 miles a day now.

I forgot to mention that we took a little detour in Peekskill, NY, an impromptu 0 day! This past Saturday we were sitting at a gas station on a road that the AT crosses, when someone said "We should get a hotel room and watch football all day," half joking. Well the idea stuck, and that's just what we did! We laid in bed from 1 until the next morning, with the exception of a dinner break, watching football. It was wonderful.

Oh, I guess I didn't write much about Connecticut, but that's ok, because there wasn't much interesting to say about it.

Well, I hope this blog update finds you all well. Thanks again for all of the support, I love you all.

Tail End