Whilst in NY I had made ready for that year’s total lunar eclipse, looking far forward and anticipating camping on the northwestern side of a lake. Over whose clearing I would have a wide viewing angle for the eclipse set to begin shortly after moonrise. This plan however could not go smoothly, as the lake it centered around, did not seem to exist. After exhausing efforts to find it, I gave up, setting camp in a rough parking lot which would provide a smaller yet adequate clearing. Having planned to camp near a lake I hadn’t carried in enough water for dinner and the next morning, luckily this lot had a large puddle, which even though fully opaque, would suffice for my immediate needs. The third and final misfortune of the night, wherein I was practicing sword drills and cracked the wood of the grip, the leather binding had deteriorated and finally came fully off, leaving it vulnerable to exactly this kind of failure. It did not crack into pieces, but I would need to be more careful with it going forwards. Even accounting for these I had a nice night, watching Princess Mononoke on my new (at the time) tablet before staying up for the complete cycle of the Blood Moon.

Coming into PA, the early snowfall was fortunate, as the bugs wouldn’t recover for the season and thus abought me 7 months to hike without being pestered by insects, an ongoing trend of good luck with the climate. I was worried that the frost would wilt all the plantlife and leave me to hike through miles of barren brown dead forest. While the colors had already peaked, much of the greenery bounced back as the thaw came quick and frost did not return until long into OH. With the change of the season I found myself sporting a blaze orange scarf on my pack, as the occasional company I would find turned from hikers to hunters. As designated camping areas became more sparse; waking up while stealth camping, to the blast of nearby gunfire of indeterminate origin became quite common. Most encounters with hunters started coldly, but I would get a warmer reception as I explained my story and their recognition of me changed from that of a vagrant, squatting in their haunts, to a fellow, and I would trade talk for advice on places to pitch my tent. To their disappointment it seemed that their hunting grounds were filled with far more hunters than game, I don’t think I saw a single one carry out a bird. After the opening weekend these meetings too seemed to taper off precipitously and I was once again, alone.

I had two rations sent to PA, although I comically misjudged the distance between them, as I shifted to the 4th (of 9…) kind of map I would use for the NCT, and once again readjusting. Carrying six days of food I found myself taking ten days between maildrops, and easily using grocery stores to bridge the gaps as I spent more time on roads. Stopping nightly in the woods, beside ghost towns, abandoned train tunnels, and the occasional derrick standing still over the original US oil patch. The fewer hunters I saw, the more I noticed the turkeys, and it came to where I would flush a half dozen groups of them each day, one such group must’ve had more than eighteen birds in its number.