Rest Days

The Appalachian Trail passes within about 40 miles of my home town of Germantown, New York.  This provided a great opportunity to visit with family while getting a few days of rest.  After 20 consecutive nights of tent camping, I was ready for a break.

My brother Rich drove over and fetched me at the trailhead near Great Barrington, Massachusetts.  We swung north to pick up Nancy at the Albany Airport, and then headed back to Germantown where we would spend four nights at Rich and Deb’s house.  In thru hiker lingo, I would be taking a “triple zero”.

Rich and Deb have a great view of the Catskill Mountains.  These were the mountains that I hiked in my younger days.

View west towards the Catskills

Back lawn (mowed by Deb) and horse pasture beyond

Rich and Deb were great hosts and kept us well-fed and watered during our stay.  I arrived weighing 153 pounds and left at 157, which attests to the good cooking.  Rich is in the middle of a home addition project, so my apologies to Deb for slowing up progress.  I count myself lucky that I didn’t get to help lift the eight foot sliding glass door unit into the opening while I was there.

A visit to New York would not be complete without a chicken barbecue.

Randy and his brother Phil busy cooking the chicken

The Coons brothers

Usually when I visit Germantown, we go for a day hike, but I had had my fill of hiking.  Rich gave me the tour of his projects including the cecropia moth caterpillars he is raising.  (I am not the only lepidopterist in the family.)  When the caterpillars first hatched from their eggs, they were less than 1/4 inch long and black in color.  Now they are nearly fully grown, with some having already formed cocoons.  He is feeding them on elderberry bushes that grow on some family property near the Methodist cemetery.

Rich checking on his caterpillars

Cecropia caterpillar

Cecropia cocoon

We paid a short visit to the cemetery.  My ancestors settled Germantown in 1710, and some of the more recent ones rest there.  I thought it was neat that in one place I could find the gravestones of my four preceding generations.

Parents Robert & Olive Coons

Grandparents James Coons & Jessie MacDonald

Great Grandparents Josiah Coons & Malvina Snyder

Great Great Grandparents Philip Coon & Jannett Snyder

Many of the thru hikers that I have been hiking with recently started in Georgia two to four weeks earlier than I did.  Ironically, most of them expect to summit Mount Katahdin by the end of August, while I anticipate that I will be on the trail until mid-September.  Either I am slowing down, they are speeding up, or one of us is bad at math.

I remember one time watching an interview of a young American cyclist who had just completed his first Tour de France.  He said, “I am just a shell of the man who three weeks ago started this race.”  I don’t want to be that guy, dragging myself up Katahdin underweight and beaten down.  My plan is to moderate my mileage and take additional rest days, if needed, to complete my hike in good shape.  New Hampshire and Maine are supposed to be especially beautiful, so I want to take the time to get the full experience.

I am hitting the trail with new shoes and gators.  Not quite sure what I was thinking when I picked out the black and white camo.  Maybe they will look better with mud on them.  This is my third pair of Altra Lone Peak trail runners which I hope will last me to the end.

New equipment

A number of times I have see wild turkeys on the trail.  They are very skittish, tending to disappear into the undergrowth as soon as I spot them.  These turkeys were several hundred yards away and paid me no notice.

Wild turkeys

Other flora and fauna …

Black-eyed Susan

Watch out for cars, little deer!

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