Day 157

Weather:
Rain.

Today’s Hike:
Inn at Long Trail to Kent Pond - 4.0 miles

After another fabulous breakfast at the Inn, we headed out. The skies were looking grey, and the hike was slow going. Muster took off ahead of us and we expected not to see her until lunch. However, we stumbled upon her at Kent pond behind Mountain Meadows Lodge. A rainstorm was headed in our direction so we decided to go up and take shelter. Here we met Alice, the resident potbelly pig. We chowed down on Ben and Jerries and waited for the rain to pass. When the clouds broke, we headed outside and got sucked into playing with the rest of the farm animals. As we started to get ready to leave Muster started talking about staying on a working farm that we had been seeing flyers for. The truth was she was hung over from her margarita binge and she didn’t want to hike the 15 miles that we needed to. The working farm wasn’t an option because of price, however, the discussion inevitably turned to staying at Mountain Meadows. After a heavy debate we all decided to stay the night at the lodge.

The consequence; we must hike to Hanover, NH in the next 2 days to get back on the schedule we made ourselves back at Manchester Center, VT. This meant that we had to hike 42 miles through the rest of VT in 2 days, not an easy proposition. I had never hiked more then 19 miles in a single day, and the Divas had never hiked more then 20. Still, we decided to stay. Part of me is looking forward to the challenge while another part is a bit overwhelmed. I guess we’ll see what the next 2 days brings. At least the long days will leave me plenty of time to maul over my life and think about what I really want to go back to after the trail; a topic heavy on my mind lately.