Day 43: Salisbury, Connecticut: 690 miles from Katahdin, 1495 from Mt. Springer

Massachusetts: Ticks or Treats

Shortly after crossing the Vermont/Mass stateline, Forrest discovered he had been bitten by a deer tick. Ticks are tiny, bloodsucking insects that carry all kinds of diseases. If you want to get one of these diseases, you should walk the AT: The Northeastern U.S. Is basically Deer Tick Alley. Deer ticks are famous for bringing Lyme Disease to any party.

We called our favorite doctor who rescues us from all the travel scraps we get ourselves into. She got him a magic potion that-- fingers crossed-- has squelched the tick's powers. 

Then we pressed on to climb Mt. Greylock, Massachusetts highest mountain, which is a pretty easy hike compared to what we've done, but still frustrating because a road goes to the top where there is a war memorial. When we reached the summit parking lot, I was mobbed by Filipino women who declared me brave and took my picture.

The trail in Mass is the best we have seen, but they make it wiggle waggle back and forth to keep you in the small state as long as possible.

 In Dalton, a man who offers water to AT hikers let us have lunch at the picnic table in his yard. As we happily munched our pack lunch, he disappeared in his house and brought out two steaming bowls of homemade soup and fresh-baked muffins.

We thought Massachusetts couldn't be friendlier, but our dear friend Anna had other plans. While driving across the state with her mom a couple weeks ago, they crossed the Appalachian Trail and decided to leave us a prize. Armed with treasure hunting instructions, we dug for buried treasure south of where their road crossed ours. 

We were so excited for the treasure hunt and then for the contents: the 3 Bs were represented--Booze, Butter, Beef Jerky.

We sat right down on the ground and had a cocktail, cold from its underground storage, the best I may have ever tasted, and read this note:

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

Took the one on which the snacks stood,

Hidden sneakily 'twixt the undergrowth."