Ticks and the Post Office

I called several Adirondack post offices recently in order to check up on the procedure of food dropping. These calls required almost as much planning as the rest of the trip. It’s possible that out of everything that makes me anxious about this trip (chiefly ticks, bears, and starvation), what I’ll have to worry about most is coordinating my arrival at post offices to fall within their business hours. Trickiest of all is the hour, or two, in which each closes for lunch, staggered apparently to avoid some Adirondack-wide stampede to the best lunch counter this side of Lake Champlain. I offer a sampling by way of example:

Piseco (pop. 200)
Mon-Fri: 9:45-12, 1:45-3:45 (Perhaps suggested by a random number generator?)
Sat: 11:30-1 (Note to self: avoid obtaining a pen pal from Piseco.)
Blue Mountain Lake (pop. 146)
Mon-Fri: 8-11, 12-4:30 (3/4 the size of Piseco, with double the PO hours... perhaps a town of dedicated catalog shoppers?)
Sat: 8-12
Long Lake (pop. 852)
Mon-Fri: 8:30-12:30, 1:30-4:45 (I assume they close early to avoid the excruciating Long Lake 5:00 rush hour?)
Sat: 9-12
Lake Placid (pop. 2638)
Mon-Fri: 8:30-5 (This bustling metropolis is far to cosmopolitan to shut its doors for lunch.)
Sat: 8:30-12:30
Keene (pop. 1063)
Mon-Fri: 8-12, 1-4:30
Sat: 8-11
Keene Valley (pop. ?)
Mon-Fri: 8-1, 2-4:45
Sat: 8-11:45

However inconvenient their eccentricities, the postmistresses make up for it in helpful friendliness. At Blue Mountain Lake, she answers the phone in that typically dull voice indicative of business phone veterans with a mouthful of spiel to get out while the caller patiently waits their turn. But as soon as I mentioned that I was a hiker and not, say, some local adolescent calling to ask how much a one-cent stamp cost, inflection breathed life back into her words and she became chatty like only a bored, small-town PO worker can be. She explained in detail how to address my care package: “General Delivery--Hungry NPT Hiker,” with an approximate date of arrival and a phone number to call three days later, because she won’t have hikers lost in her woods. We discussed weather reports, blackfly densities, and trail conditions. She asked politely about my plans and became inordinately cheerful when I told her I’d be alone. She explained that she was a determinedly pro-girl-power Girl Scout leader. How strikingly different from the last time I told a post office worker my hiking plans. The lady behind the window in Wellington responded with, “You know that hikers die in the mountains when they’re alone, don’t you?”

As an afterthought, I asked about this year’s tick forecast. “Oh, we don’t have much trouble with ticks,” she replied. The only people she’s known to have picked up ticks caught them down near Albany. Could this be so? I laughed out loud when I hung up the phone. You mean I won’t have to watch the silhouettes of ticks patiently and methodically scaling the tent walls as I lay down to sleep? I won’t have to pry tick mouthparts out of my flesh every hundred feet? (Part of the tick oogey factor must have to do with the use of the term “mouthparts” and descriptions of how they break off and remain embedded in your skin if you’re not careful. I intend to be very careful, thanks.)

The trip suddenly felt almost too easy. In the last few weeks, I’ve been coming to terms a succession of anxieties. First was bears. Once I convinced myself that bears don’t regularly munch on tent poles at 3 a.m. unless the tent’s inhabitants have been frying up salmon steaks by their bedside, I was free to worry about food. Once I planned out filling meals and ample snacks delivered via several mail drops, I wondered whether my feet would be able to keep up with my tramping schedule. After a few ambitious local hikes, I decided I could make myself walk forever if need be, unless the trail was infested with ticks. And now I’ve run out of gripping concerns.

Now all I have to worry about is breaking an ankle in the next two weeks. Or unknowingly dropping the car keys into a beaver pond at mile marker 54. Or spending my end-of-trip bus money on salad and chocolate in Long Lake, because the bust stop at the Noon Mark Diner doesn’t accept credit cards. Or arriving at the wrong post office at 4:50.