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Went for a day hike on the Appalachian Trail yestarday with Samantha. We did somewhere between 14 and 16 miles on the trail, and met a whole slew of people along the way. We ended up parking in a deli about half a mile away from the trail head and walked to the trail. About a mile along we came upon Bill, a volunteer trail maintenance person who was designing a maze out of vines for little kids. It was an interesting encounter and he left us with his card, offering to give a training session on emotinal intelligence to the group leaders here at camp. We then made it to the first break in the trail and had to cross I84 with the help of some directions from a guy on a lawnmower who lived on the corner of the street where we exited onto. Then back on the trail we passed a number of older men who were hiking the enitre trail, and had started doing so in March. Towards the end of the first half of the trail (after which we doubled back and exited where we started) it got pretty steep and we climbed to the top of a rocky area and were rewarded with a wonderful view of the Catskills. Our midway point was the Morgan Stewart shelter where we stopped for 30 minutes to have a bit to eat and drink, and signedthe register (only 10 days old at the time but already a third full). As the daylight was starting to recede we decided we needed to head back, and made better time on the mostly downhill return. Shortly after crossing the highway on the way back we ran into four kids about our age who had met along the trail and were going at it together, at least for a while. Some had started in Georgia, and some in the Carolinas. It was nice to see that so many people seemed to know each other along the way, and that everyone was willing to help out in any way possible. Our final encounter was with Rufus the dog and his owner and her boyfriend. They were a friendly couple that we talked to for a few minutes about life plans and the like before heading back to our car. On the way back we caught the beginning of the sunset from a good vantage point, but owing to the lateness of the hour we decided to move on and get back to the car rather than waiting the 20 minutes till it would be at its peak. We made it back to the car, grabbed a couple slices of pizza from the joint next to the deli where we parked and made our way home. A wonderful day and I definitely now have a desire to do more of the trail. A thru hike would be amazing, and I'll have to see where I am in life at some point to see if its something that might be possible for me.
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