Hitting the trail in the morning sun, dry and happy for our first trip through town, Franklinville. We have to walk a fair bit of highway to get there, but since the road's taking us into civilization instead of just between chunks of forest it doesn't seem so silly. Except when a Mennonite buggy zooms past us, which makes us feel very slow indeed. I wonder why those guys are dressed like me.
A town visit during a through-hike is a fun thing. At the Maplehaven restaurant, we get a delicious hot second breakfast and also order some food to go. They're kind enough to let us leave our packs here, and our cell phone charging, while we scour the rest of the town for our various needs.
The Family Dollar next door has a great selection of easy foods, batteries, and toiletries. Franklinville also has a tavern, liquor store, grocery store, many varieties of restaurant, and even the through-hiker's holy grail, a laundromat. We haven't laundered our duds since St. Catherines, and were there a hotel here we'd happily spend the night and start out tomorrow clean and fresh, but no luck, and no Airbnb stuff either. With another evening of heavy rain predicted, we need to get back into the woods and get our tarp-tent contraption up tout de suite. So it's a quick run of shopping and farewell to Franklinville.
The trail out of town is very tough to follow, thick brambles and ankle-deep mud that's quickly calf-deep if you take a wrong step. Our reward is a slow ascent to higher ground with a serene pine forest, and nourishing beef on weck from the Maplehaven.
And that tarp rigging is just about the best fun there is! So many configurations to try out.
ReplyDeleteFingers crossed for a side trip to Mount Morris.
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