Whew. Sorry I kind of vented on the last one, it was mainly a reaction to one specific encounter with just about the last Northbounder. And all of a sudden I've had shelters to myself, for what feels like the first time since Maine.
Only one thing changed when I moved from MA to CT. The dayhikers had Yankees hats on instead of Red Sox. Conn also had some of the flattest sections of the AT. I'm actually not as good at cruising through these spots as other hikers. You can shift up into a higher gear on the flat and easy ground, and you can do some big mile days. To do the most miles you need to be cold, calculating, and somewhat disengaged. Being a conqueror helps, but it's even better to be almost inhuman, like a Terminator or Cyclon. Normal hiking is usually about 2 mph, and if you're hiking very fast you can get up to 3 mph. But on this kind of terrain you can even reach the superhuman speed of 4 mph. But there's no way I (or anyone) can maintain that speed all day. But when I was hiking in Maine I would hike all day long and do 12 miles. Now I do that before noon and find myself bored with nothing to do after cruising through 20 miles in just 7-8 hours.But it's all about pacing. Doing 20 miles in a day is easy. Doing 40 in two is harder, and 60 in 3 is even harder, and et cetera.
New Jersey was surprisingly my favorite in a while. I had the misconception that it'd just be suburbs of NYC like Conneticut. I forgot that it's the Garden State, and it was quite nice. I told the State I wouldn't judge it solely on Jersey Shore, as long as it didn't judge me solely on Reno 911. I have had my Nevadan pride renewed on this trip, and it's been my ongoing campaign (and, alas, it's been kinda a war of attrition) to get people to correctly pronounce Nevâda.
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