FINISHED!!! - 510 miles

Just to let all of you guys know we are finished hiking. During the last week of the journey, we climbed Bear Mt. which is only about 30-45 minutes from NYC. This Timber rattlesnake wanted Rebecca to cuddle up but we kept trucking after a quick photo. We got picked up on July 16th in Unionville, NJ. Not too exciting of a place and yet we met the mayor and were allowed to take a shower in his house (pic above). That was a blessing for us and my family who picked us up for it would have been a long and smelly 8 hr drive back to WV. On our last full day of hiking, we saw two sets of bears (mom and cub): once in the morning on the trail and the other set was leaving our tent site! Go figure, we were a little apprehensive sleeping that night. We had a fantastic trip and plan on hiking more of the trail again; however, it'll probably be a while before we get a chance again. The map above shows what we hiked this year and last and what is left. Thanks for keeping up with us on the trail. God blessed our time away and He took great care of us. God's blessings on you.

AT Blow Out

Hello from the Hudson River in New York! We crossed over the river on Bear Mountain Bridge, built in 1923 for $5 million and it was beautiful. We are in the hometown of West Point Military Academy for the night and resting well. Heath found some shrimp at the local deli and is enjoying it while we wash our clothes in a sticky, stinky laundromat - delicious! The days have been really hot and humid, but finally we had a big thunderstorm yesterday and cooled things off. We are drawing close to finishing our trek - only 4 days of hiking left. Unfortunately, as you can see above, my shoe blew out 3 days ago and we've had to duct tape it together for the last week. Just after the bottom of my shoe fell apart, we were sitting on some rocks on the trail and another hiker came by who had excess tape and let us borrow some. (We had thrown ours in the trash about 1 week earlier, thinking we would not need it! Oops.) So now, about every 30 miles, we have to retape her up and I am good to go -- just pray that it makes it 50 more miles these next few days. We are having fun still, but will be glad to see you all again and lay our backpacks down for a few days. We have so blessed with good hitch hike rides, good pizza and ice cream, great trails to hike and lots of helpful, kind people (along with a few strange fellas!) We will be picked up in New Jersey on Monday and fly home on Thursday - 19th! See you all soon.

Into New York

We are in New York!!! We have just finished 400+ miles. Things are going fantastically and we are drying out from all the rain! Only to get soaking wet from sweat in the 92+ degree weather. What happened to the pleasant New England weather?? We are really doing well and we are going to be able to go 100 extra miles through New York State! We climbed Massachusetts highest peak, Mt. Greylock, that has the lighthouse pictured above on the summit. It was beautiful. Then we went on to Connecticut, my Dad's (Peter) home state, and climbed Bear Mountain, one that he has climbed several times in his childhood days. It was really fun, even though we did summit during a thunderstorm!! Yikes. We now are resting in a little township in New York for the day for a break from the heat -- we are a little ahead of schedule. We saw our first real snake yesterday, pictured above. It is a corn snake and thankfully no bites. Heath did have to move it with his hiking pole, because I didn't want to step over it! No worries though, I don't think they are poisonous. Also, we threw in a picture of a tree with a white blaze on it -- that is how we find our way along the trail. About every 100 ft. there is a white mark on a tree or rock that tells us the way to go. Pretty great, since I am not so good with a compass. Well, we better get going for now. Just 6 more days until we finish up our 501 miles this summer!! See most of you soon and God bless.

Massachusetts

We are finally in Massachusetts. We climbed Mass's tallest peak yesterday, Mt. Greylock, and have finished 287 miles, total this trip. We have 2 weeks left to go. We are taking an easier day today in Dalton, a town which the trail runs right thru. This guy invited us to stay in his house and he is very famous amongst hikers for his hospitality - Tom Levardi. He gave us cake, lemon pie, and HUGE ice cream sundaes with whip cream!!! Not much else because we are in a hurry so we'll put some pictures up next time. Love you guys. God bless.