This morning I was pretty down. I have a little cold and some chafing, I was uncomfortable last night, and when I looked out the window this morning it was dark, windy and lashing with rain. But it turned out to be my best day yet, in terms of distance!

By the time I left the rain had let up but the winds were still high. The roads were still wet and I discovered within a few seconds that I needed to be on the right side because the winds were drenching me with truck spray:

Note that the sky has a little promise of some sunlight. The rain in the night took down many of the remaining leaves, but the wind was quickly drying up the road:

Everywhere I looked to the side of the road was water:

I came across Kutter’s Cheese Factory and suddenly had a craving for some smoked gouda:

Across the road was a gas station. I asked to use their bathroom but was told it didn’t work very reliably. This turned out to be related to a construction project going on just outside the station where I met these two fine gentlemen:

That’s Bruce (on the left) and Wendover. Normally I don’t use last names in this blog, in order to preserve a little privacy. But Wendover gave me permission to use his full name, which is Wendover Cory Neefus IV — magnificent!

They are engineers leading this waste treatment project. Wendover claimed that Bruce was legendary but they both looked legendary to me.

All of this occurred just as I was about to pass under I-90:

This is a road we have driven countless times back and forth to Toronto and I’m sure we never noticed this place where Route 5 passed underneath. I believe this is the fourth time I have intersected with one or the other of our two standard driving routes between NJ and Toronto.

This picture of the sky is representative of the day; bits of sun mingled with heavy dark cloud:

This stream was quite active, probably from all the rain last night:

OK, Kaboodles is hiring cooks that are expert? experienced? expatriates? experimental? …

Finally I reached a milestone — saying goodbye to Route 5, which I began on Monday morning; this looks back to the nondescript intersection:

Nice barn and silo almost immediately:

This may be the first announcement I have ever seen for a meat raffle:

I pulled up to a little office-type building and went inside to consult on my google maps walking direction as I was heading to some sort of path and I didn’t want to go wrong with a long back out. Lorrie and Jessica helped me out:

It turned out that google maps was about to take me into a gated mobile home community so it’s a good thing I stopped. Lorrie and Jessica gave me permission to walk through the property and even called down to one of the maintenance guys to ensure that the gate to the path was open.

So here I enter the community:

and enter a little section that is protected from the wind and still has some leaves:

Soon I arrived at the little gate that exited the gated community and entered this path that used to be a railway:

and this is what it looked like:

for nine miles!! I had it all to myself (saw one jogger and one cyclist the entire time). It had some pretty sections:

some more exposed sections where I fought just to keep the cart going against the wind:

and some sections that went through nice neighborhoods:

The news was full of stories about wind damage; here’s some that I saw:

Sadly the path came to a bold end:

Even though the road I was dumped onto (Transit Road) was busy and crowded (like Route 22 for my NJ friends), it did lift my spirits at one point with Tim standing alone and beckoning to the north:

A friend in NJ (Nancy) had reached out some days back to a friend of hers (Carol) who lives in the area, and as a result Carol and her husband Brad kindly offered to pick me up at the end of my walk. I arranged to meet Brad at a Dunkin Donuts, where I had time for a large cup of tea:

It wasn’t long before Brad arrived, we scooted down to his house and enjoyed some delicious chili together. Here are Brad and Carol with their son Aaron:

Each time someone makes this sacrifice to pick me up and offer me a meal and bed and drop me off in the morning, I am freshly filled with gratitude. This case is particularly sacrificial because Brad and Carol are leaving on the train early tomorrow for NYC to see their other son Josh run in the NYC Marathon on Sunday so we will have to leave especially early for my drop-off.

Just 18 miles to the border. I should easily be able to make that even though showers are predicted for the whole day. I’m excited because it is a major milestone of my journey and also because … well, I’ll tell you tomorrow, gentle readers!