Social long-distancing

We huddled under a flapping tarp, but our flimsy shelter at Mud Lake wasn’t keeping out the rain. Heads bowed, Teresa, Clare and I gulped down a few bites of lunch while the wild, wet northern edge of Hurricane Isaias swirled around us. We had planned to hike at least 12 miles on this first day of a Northville-Placid thru-hike and we were only at mile 5. Our afternoon would be a soggy forced march.

As we walked after lunch, I kept up a cheerful, spirit-boosting chatter and tried to ignore the unrelenting rain that flowed down my rain gear onto my boots. When we reached the ford at West Stony Creek, the broad stretch of water surprised me. Shouldn’t this be called a river?

“Let’s head straight across,” I said after we