Day 99 Morgan Stewart Shelter to Ten Mile River Shelter

Today's miles 20.6.  AT miles 1454.5

After yesterdays dull day, today was a refreshingly good day in our AT office. Much more variety in terrain and scenery.  The sun was shining, it was a lovely warm day with a nice breeze and was far less humid.  We started hiking at 8:40 today. Just as we were leaving Ma and Pa, a couple of section hikers, arrived at the shelter so we had a nice chat with them. 

A few miles into the morning we passed Nuclear Lake, very picturesque.  We saw a lot of Common Garter Snakes on the trail sunning themselves this morning, Nigel walked right over one and didn't notice.  The trail was pretty good today, it was nice to just be able to walk without loads of obstacles.  There were a few small boggy and rocky sections but mainly nice smooth paths.  After Nuclear Lake we passed another small swampy pond which had overflowed onto the trail, which required a minor detour walking along a fallen tree. 

We then hit a really nice grassy hill, passing some cows on the way up, we stopped at the top and sat in the sunshine for half an hours break enjoying the view.  

Down from the hill we reached another lovely boardwalk, Swamp River Boardwalk, which had AT engraved seats, very nice.  At the end of the boardwalk we crossed a railway line where there was The Appalachian Trail Railroad Station.  Yes the AT has a station, a very small one.  The train driver must have to be very skilled to line the door of the train carriage along side the very short platform.  Next door to the station was a lovely hiker friendly garden centre, Native Landscapes.  They didn't have a lot of hiker supplies but we bought some canister gas, a Mountain House meal, cliff bars and some Dr Bronners soap from them.  We met Doyi there who we'd not seen since Perisburg.  We got a bit of trail magic too.  There was a hiker supply box left by someone no longer on the trail for other hikers that we got two dehydrated Turkey dinners from and we also got half a dozen free eggs.  The shop owner said the eggs were over a week old so we could just have them.   We needed something for breakfast, so we now have boiled eggs for breakfast tomorrow. 

From the garden centre we had a further ten miles to go, the trail remained good mostly, initially through grassy fields again and then back into the woods.  It was a nice pleasant temperature in the woods in the shade of the sun. We passed Wiley Shelter, which had its own Free Little Library, where we bumped into Gingko.  He walks much faster than us so continued on ahead of us the last four miles to Ten Mile River Shelter where we arrived about 6:30.  On the way there we left New York state and entered the state of Connecticut, our tenth state.  There was another couple , Heinz and Salt already at the shelter with their dog Gracie.  Profontane (John, other half of Starsky & Hutch/Team 118) whizzed past me on the trail to the shelter and later Beast, Forget me not, Zebra and Tilikum arrived.  They were ahead of us on the trail by a few days but had just spent three days visiting New York so caught us up again.  A full house.