Long time no Say...

Sorry about the very huge gap in between my blog postings.... since I last posted back in Salisbury the trail has took me 200 miles....

I am now in Rutland Vermont with Aunt Barb and Jim,, along with tintin and Megaladon. We just went out to dinner at Three Tomatoes, it was quite good.. we flipped a coin to pick between Sal's italian restaurant and the three tomatoes and I think that the coin made a good decision and we all enjoyed our meal.

Taking the switch back in time to July 4th,,, I had one of the best 4ths that I can ever remember and quite substantially better then last years 4th.

My 2009 4th of July was not one to write home about for certain is sure. That day consisted of me likely waking up at around 11 AM.... drifting in and out of sleep for a few hours and finally making the groggy trek to my shower at around 1 or 2 PM... I likely then realized that my 3 work shirts were all slightly dirty. (It was very uneconomical to do laundry every three days when all that was at stake was my 3 work shirts) At around 2:30 I would come to the horrible realization that yes indeed I did have to go to work that day and I would mosey around until 3:30 when it was time to make the drive down to a little shop of dough making joy. 4 o'clock I started my 4th of July at Little Caesars,,, where I would roll out pizza pan after pizza pan of dough... occasionally making the switch to placing toppings and sauce and cheese. This would go on until 9 or 10 when at last it was time to sweep/mop/and do dishes. I still remember taking a trash can full of garbage outside to the dumpsters and hearing the sounds of fireworks in the background.... I could hear the bombs of noise and happiness just over the trees but I could not seem to catch a glimpse of the spectacle that is fireworks. later that night I drove home; changes; put my asics on and at either 11 or 12 I went jogging. As far as I can remember July 4th fell into the 30 day challenge that I had made for myself. I had decided to jog everyday,, no matter how late it was and no matter for how long for 30 consecutive days. It didn't matter if it consisted of a 15 minute run around the block at 3 AM I had put my mind to running everyday for 30 straight days and somehow I actually did acomplish that. I would tape White Printer Pages on my wall with the number of day that I was on..... eventually the wall began to fill up and each day I got closer to 30 my wall got fuller and fuller.

Needless to say,, last year spending the day at Little Caesars and jogging with myself and my Ipod of music was not the most epic day on record. It wasn't a bad day then either,, don't get me wrong.. it just felt like I should have been somewhere with people instead of locked up in the world of cheese and pepperoni.

This year's fourth of July an absolutely wonderful day on the trail... I woke up... walked into the town of Great Barrington.. did laundry.. got a sandwhich at the grocery store... walked down to the cinema... watched a movie.(Knight and Day - I do not reccomend it but it was not bad.. Tom Cruise did a decent job)... got a taxi the 3 miles back to the free tenting place... packed up my stuff... started hiking at 4... met a Flip Floper (when you start at the halfway point and go north to Khatadin and then South to Georgia all in the same year) Named Apple Juice.. hiked with him 6 miles to a shelter where a fellow hiker Longshanks and his brother had hiked in 2 miles Beer.. Buns... Burgers... Hot Dogs... cheese and vegtables.. and did I mention they had 4 cases of beer.... There were about 12 people there and we all enjoyed each others company while eating and drinking and being merry by the fire.

The next day tintin caught up and we met Megaladon and megaladon's parents that evening... From there on out it was 5 or 6 straight days of slackpacking and staying at Hotels and eating wonderful Dinners and breakfasts and just altogeter having a great hike despite the overwhelming heat.

Thusly I have to wrap up this blog and head to bed at we have 23 miles to do tomorrow... It looks as if my goal now is to summit on August the 12th or 13th or 14th. That's about 17 miles a day from here on out... and it seems like we can hopefully make it happen.

I really enjoy tintin and megaladon's company and they are both pretty decent guys. Megaladon is 19 from Pittsburgh and heading to college next year. Tintin is Almost 30 in two weeks from England and he's a interesting character,, but pretty cool. I like them both alot.

So that's is the plan for the final stretch of this adventure... the White Mountains and the Pain that is sure to be Maine await with their steep steep mountains and beautiful views. I do not know what to think.... Less than 500 miles to go

It's time to make it happen.

thanks for reading

Kashmir.