Day 111 – Unionville, NJ to NJ94

“I’m singin’ in the rain,

Just singin’ in the rain,

What a glorious feeling,

I’m happy again!

I’ll walk down the lane

With a happy refrain,

Just singin’, singin’ in the rain!” – Gene Kelly

Up at 5:40. Packed and headed out at 6:30. We have 16.6 miles to go today. 

Mid-80s, humid, 25% to 55% chance of rain. Radar shows a storm blowing through at 8:00 a.m. then 15% chance of showers till late afternoon, then good chance of storms around 5:00 p.m.

Walked to the general store for breakfast and supplies. Great sandwiches. I’m probably oversupplied, but we have 3.5 days till our next town stay. 

Killed a little time to let the storm go by before heading out. We have about a mile of road walk before we hit the trail. Headed out at 8:20.

Walked through meadows and wetland game preserves. A few small road walks on country roads too. Raining lightly and heavily, but no wind. Just straight down. That makes it easy and the umbrella chest rig works perfectly in these conditions.

Stopped for a break in a wetlands game preserve about 10:30. Rain finally stopped….for now! Getting humid but there is a slight breeze. Had a nice phone call with Dana while walking in the rain 🙂

OMG, did it get hot and humid once the rain stopped? Nastiest I can remember since Virginia. And this climb isn’t helping! Stopped at a shelter to use the privy and take a mid-climb break.

It’s insanely hot and humid out here! Stopped at 1:45 for water. The extended family showed up a little after we arrived. We have 3.9 miles to the farm store. I’m pushing ahead alone to get there before the store closes at 4:00. I’ll buy some Gatorade and stuff for both of us and wait for Overkill. Back on trail at 2:10.

Finally got to the famous NJ boardwalks!

YouTube video of NJ boardwalk.

Stopped at 3:45 at mile 11.8 at Heaven Hill Farm store at NJ 94. Water, baked goods, fruit, bathrooms. https://heavenhillfarm.com/

Turns out they don’t close till 6:00, so I busted ass getting here by 4:00 just for my health. Oh well. Great ice cream and the apple cider slushy is awesome!

Overkill arrived about 4:40. We planned to hang out until the next thunderstorm passed. But it moved in slower than expected. It started storming about 5:30. Very nasty storm. And there are 3 more waves coming. 

YouTube video of thunderstorm.

We decided to call it a day. We would have had 5 miles to go and the first 1.4 were VERY steep and rocky. Too dangerous to try that with this much rain and our last hour would likely have been in the dark. We Ubered to a Quality Inn for the night. We got the last room. It’s huge. We have stuff spread everywhere drying out.

Ordered a pizza and Cokes and worked on blogs and route planning for the next week. In bed at 10:30.

 Challenging day. Started off very nice with breakfast, and the initial walks in the rain were nice as it was straight down and refreshing. Got stressful as the day progressed with nasty heat and the rain slowing us down. Growing dread of making it the final 5 miles to camp with looming storms. Very glad we called it and got lucky finding a hotel room with pizza delivery. If we had tried those last 5 miles we would NOT have made it before dark and likely gotten injured on the climb up. Unfortunately we have miles to make up. 

Technical Notes:

• Breakfast sandwich 700
• Hostess cupcakes 330
• Coffee 30
• Hostess cupcakes 330
• Coffee 30
• Skittles 100
• Ice cream 400 
• Apple cider slushy 170
• Gatorade 140
• Cider donut chips 1000
• Pizza 1500
• Soda 300
• Chips 500
• Water liters 4
• Miles 11.8
• Time 7:30
• Elevation gain 3159
• Calories consumed 5600
• Calories burned 5500