Samwise Hikes the Appalachian Trail! - Trail Journal -
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July 24, Thomas Episcopal, Vernon, NJ - mile 1337.9

This hostel is fabulous! If New Jersey-ites were a bit friendlier, this town might be in competition with Delaware Water Gap for my favorite. The hostel has just about everything a hiker could want - laundry, showers, a telephone, tons of floor space to sleep on, a computer with internet access & a television. In fact, the others are all watching a video right now & I'm hoping it will end soon so that I can go to bed!

Today was probably the hottest day I've had on the trail - I think I saw the heat index was about 95*. I was very glad to have only 7.5 miles to get into town, but I was not really thrilled about the 2 1/2 miles of road walk. Right before the highway to town, the trail does a big square on tar roads, which are really unpleasant to walk on. The heat radiating up is bad in NJ, there are also no shoulders to speak of, so you end up walking right on the white line. We all noticed, too, that NJ drivers don't move over at all when they pass by you. At first, I thought it was because of oncoming traffic & then I realized there usually was no oncoming traffic - they just don't move over.

Anyway, despite all that, I'm here & clean & happily going through my two boxes. One is my regular mail drop from Tony, but the other is a huge box from my Aunt Ann. And she thought of everything! Homemade brownies & coffee cake, dried soup mix, apricots & gummies - it's incredible! I feel like it's Christmas time, & now so do the other hikers here, since I'm sharing all my goodies with them. Well, not ALL. Just the stuff I can't eat all by myself in one night.