First, all pictures up to today are uploaded: http://www.box.net/shared/2sy8qdbh6k.  There are a lot of pics there that I took just to see what time it was, and others that I took half a dozen times because it didn’t look right.  I’m going to try to put the best ones on Flickr, but they’re all there if you want to sort through them.

I’m now in New York, after hiking to Franconia Notch in New Hampshire (where the Old Man of the Mountain was once) and taking a bus through NYC to connect to a commuter train to Peekskill.  I was planning to hike 4.5 miles from the train station to the trail, then another few miles to the Graymoor Center (a friary that lets hikers stay there).  But when I got off the train I walked past a bar with live music…late 60’s folk stuff I think.  I peeked in, and a guy outside said, “you should come in, they’re pretty good.”  I told him I had to get going, had hiking to do, and he replied, “Well, what if I buy you a beer?”  “OK.”  Him and his buddy bought me a couple beers at the bar while I told some trail stories, and then he gave me a ride straight to Graymoor after stopping to pick up a couple of tall boys on the way (yeah, I brought beer to a monastery…so sue me).  That’s what they call “Trail Magic” – people being unreasonably awesome just because you’re wearing a pack.

The next day, I woke up at about 10:00 and headed over Bear Mountain bridge to the zoo, up the mountain, and to the closest shelter.  The whole time I had an obscure Dylan song in my head called Bear Mountain Picnic.  “I don’t like mountains….an’ I hate bears…”  The shelter was pretty crowded with tents pitched all over the place.  I guess everyone in NYC was out for the weekend – Oktoberfest was going on in the park.  But when I poked my head in and asked if there was room for one more, they said, “Sure…about a dozen people have looked in here, but you’re the first one to ask.”  Which is why I was the guy sleeping by a blazing fire in the shelter while the suckers slept out in their freezing tents.  Score one for the good guys.