Miles: 4.0
Medicine Man, Sunshine, Kevin and I got a semi-early start to the day - 8:30 am. Not too bad for the four of us. We had heard about this big, red barn where the owner lets hikers stay for free - it's just 16 miles over hilly, but not mountainous, terrain. Definitely doable.
We hiked a good pace into West Hartford, home of the $2 milkshake. (We nicknamed the town East Milkshake because, after a while, all the town names blur into eachother and you can't remember East so-and-so or West so-and-so. Also - the only thing this town is known for is the $2 milkshake.) Medicine Man and Sunshine had a maildrop, so we stopped to take a long break. Kevin and I went to the general store / only restaurant in town for a cheeseburger and, of course, a milkshake. Yum. After we finished eating and Medicine Man and Sunshine sorted through their maildrop, we all headed down to the river to take a quick dunk.
There's a bridge spanning across the river approximate 30 feet above it. From the road, we took a path to the river, directly underneath the bridge, to a rope swing. Sunshine and I swung into the river a couple of times while Kevin tanned and Medicine Man caught up on the sports world. On my second swing, my foot hit a rock, cutting it near the big toe. So, I decided to chill out on the rocks nearby and enjoy the sun. Sunshine joined me and started talking about jumping from the bridge... didn't look like a bright idea to me. However, we saw a couple of kids jump, so Sunshine finally convinced me to jump. If a 12-year old kid could do it, I could, right?
We walked up and around to the bridge and joined the group of camp kids daring each other to jump. Sunshine and I stood there for 20 minutes until we finally decided we were brave enough. We climbed on top of the railing, planning to jump together and then counted slowly to 3. Neither of us went when we hit 3. We climbed back down off the railing and repeated the scenario again. This time, we were going to go. 1....... 2...... 3. I jumped. Sunshine stayed. My body swung back slightly and then hit the water with a stinging force. My butt and the backs of my thighs felt like they were on fire, but the water was refreshingly cold. I took my time swimming to shore and looked up to see Sunshine still clutching the railing.
Several more kids jumped and then Sunshine made her move. We held our breaths and she did it. After she landed perfectly and swam to shore, we realized that our pictures didn't come out well. She went right back to the top, didn't contemplate anything and jumped again. The pictures of the second jump came out well, so there didn't need to be a third go at it :)
We sat in the sun, basking in our new-found courage, when a guy walked up to Sunsine and said, "Anybody can jump that bridge, but it takes a brave person to think about it for 30 minutes and then jump." So true.
At this point, our destination changed from the Big Red Barn to Thistle Hill Shelter, 4 miles outside of town. It kept us on schedule and gave us more time at the swimming hole. Good stuff. We had time for a beer, so Sunshine, Kevin and I walked up to the general store to grab one. We returned to the river, enjoyed PB&J sandwiches from the camp kids, sat for another half hour and sent Medicine Man on another beer run. That's the point at which we were stuck.
We swam some more, tanned on the rocks, drank the beer and hung out with the locals. When two of the locals started sharing their Twisted Teas with us, we decided we were camping in town. There is a friendly family that lets hikers camp in their yard and, as a double bonus, it was across the street from where we were - PERFECT! Lots of Twisted Teas later, we were partying with Randy (cool guy that lets hikers camp in his yard), Ron and Rainy. Phew! What a night. Sunshine and I were on Cloud Nine while our boys kept an eye on us. I finally passed out around 10:30, exhausted and a tad bit sunburned. What a perfect summer day.
- Bobo