Day 114: Parental Visit

Hiked 18.7 miles, staying at America's Best Value Inn in Lee, MA.

Today I got to see my parents!  They planned to do trail magic at Goose Pond Rd.  I had originally planned to camp 7 miles further on last night but the spot on the lake was too great to pass up.  Unfortunately this meant that instead of a nice easy eight miles to meet up with them, I now had fifteen to go.  This meant an early start since I wanted to try to get there close to noon so I could spend time with them.

There was a good view from the top of Baldy Mountain but overall there weren't too many excuses to stop and rest today.  It was still hot out but a strong breeze came up which helped cool me off and drove away the bugs.  I think this is the first day in many weeks that the mosquitos have been virtually nonexistent.  This combined with moderate terrain meant I was able to crank out some miles.

Morning view of the lake

Passing through a large field just outside of Tyringham, MA

To the left of the above photo

I forgot to mention two days ago that I ran into my first southbound thru hiker as I entered Falls Village!  He was at the head of the pack.  Since then I have seen at least four or five per day.  It is interesting that there are so many all together at the front.  I think it is because unlike northbounders there is a hard date of June 1st of when you can start south because you have to wait until Katahdin opens.  This means all the early starters are clumped together.

The southbounders that I saw today raved about upcoming trail magic.  Apparently the trail magic my parents put on was the first they have gotten on the trail and they were really pumped.  I cranked through the miles today and finished the fifteen miles to Goose Pond Rd by noon.  There were my parents!  It was awesome to see them and they put on some great trail magic.  I hung out with them there for a few hours.  I think they had a lot of fun meeting all of the hikers and had probably fifteen to twenty people stop by.  They were excited to meet the people I've been hiking with for a long time.

9 AM photo

This tree was missing the front half of itself

The crest of Baldy Mountain

 The plan was to stay in Lee tonight and the spot that my parents did trail magic was about four miles away.  So I had to continue on.  I passed around Goose Pond which was really pretty.  The cool moment came right before Lee when I passed over I-90.  This is a footbridge over the highway with a big sign that says Appalachian Trail on it.  I've passed under it many times over the last decade and always looked up and thought "someday I'm going to walk across that" and now here I was actually crossing it.  It was a pretty awesome and trippy moment.

My parents picked me up along with Why Not, Obie and Srocket.  They very kindly got a motel room for me and we packed all of the hikers into it.  We also persuaded Hotdog to join us for the evening shenanigans since she was right in the area.  So I had four ladies rooming with me tonight, definitely the best ratio I've seen on the trail.

My parents came to visit!

Crossing I-90!

 My parents got a room as well and drove us all to a great dinner at a local Indian restaurant.  The food was amazing and we ate ourselves into a food coma.  On the way home we picked up a couple beers and brought them back to the room.  Why Not informed us that she was going to take a quick nap before having a beer.  She was out for the night.  The rest of us weren't far behind, what a good day.