After seeing my friend from Basic Military Training (BMT) who lives in New Jersey, I drove all night to a rough County Rd in Vermont where the Appalachian Trail ran through. This road was three miles from the Massachusetts border. Jen slept a bit in the back as she had to drive to pick up her sister in Boston after dropping me off. I drove down some rocky, sketchy dirt road that cut the sidewall on two of the tires. Anyways, I got to the Appalachian trail at about 1 am. I packed my backpack and started hiking at 2am. I started hiking 7 miles to the first shelter. I stopped at Roaring Branch lake at 0430 to watch the sunrise and ate a banana and granola bar for breakfast. There I saw another guy and as I packed up my things and started walking I asked him how everything was going. He replied back, everything is screwed. Turns out his tent was leaking all night through the rain storm and everything he had was wet including his clothes and sleeping bag. It was in the 40's that day, so I felt bad for him. I continued my hike to the Congdon shelter for food at 0700 and relaxed in the shelter as it began to rain. Since I didn't sleep the night before, I fell asleep until 1300. The rain stopped and I finished hiking to Melville Nauheim shelter. It was full of hikers. I had an MRE for dinner. In total I hiked 13 miles that day.

The next day I hiked 17 miles. I ate lunch at Goddard shelter and climbed Glastenbury observation tower. It was extremely muddy and I was constantly jumping over puddles because all I brought were my tennis shoes. That night I boiled water to heat up my MRE and I stayed at story spring shelter with 3 old guys. One guy slept in his tent and then I slept in the shelter with Zee and Gentlemen. These were their trail names because they were hiking the whole Appalachian Trail (which is about 2,200 miles long). They started hiking the trail in February in Georgia.

The next day I  hiked 15 miles and climbed Stratton mountain to the fire tower.

I ate tuna and crackers for lunch at Stratton pond. This location was beautiful! That night, I set up my tent at Prospect rock. Overall, I did 45 miles through the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. When I woke up, I hiked down to Rooteville Rd and my lovely bride was there to pick me up. It was a great experience to have nothing to do but to get up and hike. I enjoyed the time I had to clear my mind and re-prioritize things in my life.