Weird, wheezy, snorting deer wandered around our tent last night, keeping us both up. We got up early as a result and we were packing up just as it started to rain. I noticed some lazy bees around us, but didn’t notice the one that flew into the tent as I was packing it up, so got stung on my palm. Not the best beginning to the day.
After that we followed more purple and moss-covered ridges, this time in a hard rain. Eventually, we reached the high point of the trail in NY, the rain broke, and we got a nice break on top with a view of Greenwood Lake. We sat up there and enjoyed a piece of leftover pizza for late breakfast – awesome. Right after that, we crossed into New Jersey and the day heated up to a muggy 30C+. (Mk: Shortly after hitting New Jersey we saw a black bear and her very small cub. So cute! Ryley’s words: “that bear cub is what cute stuffed animals are modelled after!”. The cub was leaping little bushes trying to catch up with mama…. Also, in our opinion, the best kind of bears to see. Cute, far enough away, and moving away from us.)
We climbed the last hill and ran into hordes of day hikers on the way down. Megan sweet talked a guy named Sal into giving us a ride into Vernon and he dropped us off at a church hostel, our home for the night.
The hostel was great, but our company was a bit odd. Everyone just kept to themselves, so we did our usual resupply and made ourselves some sweet sandwiches in the church kitchen. Megan also ate 3 donuts (this would not be noteworthy if it was me). We watched Mean Girls and went to sleep late, a norm these days for town…