July 22
    It's Sunday night and I'm in the Jailhouse Hostel in Palmerton, PA about 36 miles from New Jersey. It's not really a jail, just the basement of the borough building. My last 5 days have been rough. I guess in Duncannon I got it in my head to do 110 miles in less than 5 days. It looked good on paper and I was feeling confident I was getting my trail legs. Plus Stanimal and Lola hitchhiked to Virginia on Sunday for a week off with his girlfriend, I know, weak, haha.  So while it was great to start with them because they usually do 13 to 15 miles per day, I was ready to start busting out some big mileage days and get the heck out of Pennsylvania, or Rocksylvania as it's not so affectionately referred to by thru hikers. This goal of mine I'd soon find out would prove to be very tough and painful to meet.
    The rocks on the trail are as numerous as the grains of sand on the beach. One time a hiker name Fictional Joe tried to clear the rocks from the PA trail. After 2 weeks of labor with a pry bar he gave up. He made it a distance of 5 feet. Apart form 20 miles north of boiling springs where you're hiking through farms, you're on rocks. They're constantly trying to make you slip off of them, sprain your ankles, get your poles caught in them,  lure you into a compound fracture. Some of them pop up from the ground right as you pass over and trip you.
    I don't mind the big boulders, you can get some momentum skipping across them and it's fun because your mind and body are so in synch at such a fast pace the time and miles go quickly. Plus if your feet are hurting it's not so bad because you've got a little adrenaline rush going.
    My first night into this little trip was with that Puma Ghost Walker. I was glad he was there because it was in the middle of nowhere and these deer were hanging around the site all night because of some good grass in the site. I'd be sound asleep and then a stick would snap like 10 feet away from me. I'd check it out with my headlamp, expecting to see a 400 lb. bear munching on Puma but it would just be a dumb deer staring at me. After this happened a few times i didn't worry anymore. I'm not really worried about bears but where you're in the woods at night and a stick snaps close by, they're not far from your thoughts.
    So that was a good day, next day I did about 22 miles and ended up at 501 Shelter, 3 miles short of my goal but I was beat. Plus it was close to a road so you could order pizza which I didn't hesitate to do. Pizza is one of those life sustaining substances, like water, that are very important on the trail.
    Also, a cold outdoor shower the next morning was very nice. Little things like that help alot. 3rd day I did 24 miles to Port Clinton. Slept in a pavillion where hikers are allowed to sleep. The next morning as it poured rain I was very slow to rise but noticed many new hikers, to me at least. I was catching up to new people. I spent some time mending my feet til 10:30 rolled around and I knew I had to go, although I was tempted to go to a nearby restaurant to get a good breakfast, I knew a morale lift wouldn't make my feet feel better, so I trudged off into the rain knowing I had to get it over with. One other hiker stayed behind in his sleeping bag, he said he wasn't hiking in the rain. I felt tougher than him as I left. It was the hardest day yet. That was 17 miles I think. One part was very nice though towards the end. the leaves on the trees were like an electric green color, and the tree trunks and branches appeared jet black because of being wet and an eerie fog was amongst it all. I did like that part, it was beautiful in an unsettling way I guess if that makes any sense.
   Day 5 of this whole thing was my best day on the trail yet. I left Eckville Shelter around 8:30 planning to do about 17 miles, with just slight thought that if I felt good I could push on to Palmerton but I doubted it with how I was feeling. Around noon I guess I started to get a craving for some pie and coffee and I couldn't stop thinking about it. A coconut cream or peanut butter pie and coffe would just hit the nail right on the head I kept thinking. So I had no expectations for this until I passed a lady heading south and she said in passing I should get water at the restaurant because there isn't sany for another 10 miles or something. In my mind I was like, "Restaurant?" Restaurants have pie. So I didn't put care about the whole no water for 10 miles thing. I had a new mission. In a few miles where the trail crosses PA route 309 was Blue Mtn Summit Bed and Breakfast. I stopped in of course and a guy Piedmont I'd been walking with was already there and said he'd ordered an apple dumpling. Well that was even better than pie. "Do you want ice cream too? 50 cents a scoop." 'Do I want ice cream?'  Dumb question. "2 scoops I said."
    Have you ever heard about how the human body knows what it needs and can subconciously express those needs. For example, I heard about a guy stranded on  a raft at sea for days. He was getting by with rain water and raw fish but eventually just had this desire to eat fish eyeballs. And he did. I guess there were some vitamins or minerals avialable only in the eyeballs that his body knew he needed. So I wasn't taking it lightly that my body said it needed pie.
       I got some coffee too and some ice water and it was all very amazing. That's the one thing I'm loving about this trail. Every morning I wake up and have no idea what's going to happen that day. You might be blessed with an apple dumpling, or help a little kid put back on his training wheel after he took a turn too fast, or have some meddling teenagers who are up to no good throw small sticks at you and then run away as you nap under a pavillion in a park. You just never know, it's pretty fun.. Well it's 12:36 a.m. right now and I havn't gotten to the best part yet about this 110 mile mine trip.