Searching for Motivation

Nano and Amicus starting another day on the MA AT.

     Today was a rather short day, hiking wise.  We only hiked about 9 miles, but it was another beautiful day in the Massachusetts forests.  The day was also short on energy for me.  For some reason, I felt like I was dragging all day.  The trail wasn't too difficult today, and it definitely took me longer to hike those 9 miles than it should have.  Maybe there's a disconnect between my mind and my body right now.  My mind says "Hey, let's do this!" and my body says "Wait, I thought we discussed this.  I thought we are all about solitary time in questionably lit and quiet rooms surrounded by medical textbooks now.  Let's not."  I know we'll all get on the same page soon.  I think the first few days of something like this are always the most difficult.  Whatever my muscles might say right now, I'm so glad I'm here.
      We hiked past a very large pond full of lillypads and bullfrogs.  The pond was so calm you could see the reflection of the clouds on the surface.  The bullfrogs were croaking, and it was the middle of the day.  I'd love to hear what that pond sounds like at night.

Bullfrog Pond

  During our hike, we passed two work crews out doing maintenance on the Trail.  I can't even imagine how much work it must take to keep 2,100+ miles (or even 1 mile) of trail maintained so well.  The AT experience surely wouldn't be as wonderful without them.  Towards the end of our hike for the day, we were on the lookout for something called "The Cobbles," which was supposed to have a nice view.  We passed something that we thought was it, but it was so heavily wooded that there wasn't really a view.  We thought it was rather anticlimactic, but hiked on.  We almost missed The Cobbles, because we later realized it was on a bit of a side trail.  I was so glad we took a minute to go off the beaten path, because the view was definitely worth it.
     

MA Valley View

     Since it was a pretty short hiking day, we got done at a decent hour and were able to spend some time thinking about how we're going to approach the next week of hiking, which looks like it might be pretty tough.  We had some delicious tomatoes from home for supper and even got to explore the area a little, which is always fun.

Beautiful old Victorian house in town.  It looks like something from a Zombie movie.