Today was an interesting day. It started at the St. John’s pavilion where I stayed for a second night. I had arranged for a shuttle driver, Steve, to pick me up at 9 o’clock. So I got up about 6 o’clock, packed my stuff, looked at the clock and still had almost an hour and a half before the pick-up. I called Steve to confirm that he was coming at nine and I asked him if he could pick me up at the 3C café, which is about a 10-minute walk up the hill from the pavilion. He said he could so I started the hike up the hill.

 Now, the 3C restaurant has a reputation for home cooked food and large portions. When I got there, I ordered the 3C special omelette, which is a three-egg omelette with peppers, onions, and ham. It was about the worst omelette I’ve ever eaten. It had white American cheese melted on the top and the eggs were so done that they were brown in places. The orange juice even tasted a little off so overall I was not impressed with the 3C restaurant.

Steve called me at about 8 o’clock and said that he would be up there at about 830, which is 30 minutes earlier than we agreed, but that’s OK because I was ready to go anyway. He said he drove a red Dodge Dart. Now I was thinking of a Dodge Dart like Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers used to talk about, but this was a new Dodge Dart. It didn’t make any difference, because the interior was so bad that it’s hard to describe. Now, when I met Steve yesterday in the barbershop, he had his English bulldog with him who promptly started to lick my leg for five minutes until I finally shewed him away, I guess he liked the salt from the sweat. Well, apparently Steve’s dog lived in the Dodge Dart car because it was covered, ceiling to floor with dog hair and dander. In fact, the front seat looked like it was made out of camel hair, not vinyl. Steve himself is about 83 years old, walks with a gimp, is missing some of his front teeth on the top in the bottom, and smells like Winston cigarettes. Needless to say, it was an interesting shuttle ride up to the ridge. Steve talked about Second Amendment, hunting, girls shooting, and the Second Amendment again. That kind of gives you a taste of where Steve was.

I made it up to the top of the ridge without further incident. This particular portion of the forest was very dense, with much shorter, smaller more numerous trees, but well laid soft path, at least in the first section. It felt almost as if I was inside a room rather than in the forest. As usual, the path started out soft and got progressively rocky as the day went on. After about 2 miles in, there is a section which is called the Knife. It’s literally a diagonal stack of massive rock shelves at the top of the ridge that runs for almost a quarter of a mile. Very difficult to hike over. I was able to get some video and some good shots of the views. Beautiful trail, but very difficult and definitely a four-point climb in some places. At one point I had to sit down and scramble through a narrow defile of rocks and my pack got caught and scraped the fabric off of one of my water bottle holders. I’m definitely going to have to get a new pack next season.

I bumped into Dreamsickle and Lucky somewhere in there. Of course, they were faster than me, but I managed to catch them in about 3 miles at a road where they were sitting with some friends, eating steaks, watermelon, and soda. Definitely trail magic. They invited me to have some of their watermelon, which I eagerly accepted. We chatted for a while, and then I went on.

I was able to make it to Bake Oven Knob Shelter. The water is excellent here, but the shelter is inhabited by yet another porcupine. So I pitched my hammock slightly down the slope toward the spring, and prepared for rain, which is expected tonight around 9 o’clock. It’s supposed to rain most of the night, and I am going to make sure that I am prepared and will not get wet this time.

Tomorrow, I will hike into Palmerton and stay somewhere there. That’s the last town that I’ll hit before I get to Stroudsburg in about four days. The trail is still fairly difficult, but I guess my feet are getting used to it. Overall, this was a great day.

Today’s Mileage: 6.2

Total Trail Miles: 226.8

David promises that when he gets to a place that has enough power to download his videos and pictures he will do so. Until then we will have to imagine him swinging on a rope and dropping into the cold spring fed pond and precariously placing his tiny feet on what the beavers put up as their home so that he could get across the water. I can’t wait.

While hiking days serve the purpose of working the body and fostering profound contemplation, zero days provide an opportunity to rejuvenate the body and organize those thoughts. So today, I’ll give you six thoughts of varying profundity that have surfaced during this hike. Please forgive the length of this post, and perhaps chalk it up to a doddering, old man stumbling down the trail.

Thought one: I’m soft. No matter how much I learn about hiking, civilization always untrained me how to survive. While hiking helps me to remember how to be comfortable in nature, modern living has tricked me into thinking that I could survive without it. I don’t claim to know whether I would survive or not, but at least I would have some idea what to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prepper. I’m not suggesting the end of the world is nigh, and that we should all become Sarah Connors. But it does concern me that 95% of the population of our country is utterly unprepared to be an environment other than a modern one. The lesson is to reconnect with nature, learn about survival, think about what you would do if power, water, food and transportation went away, even for a short time.   

Thought two: Trash. We, as a society, produce huge amounts of garbage, most of it in the name of convenience. Packaging, packaging, packaging. On the trail, we learn to consolidate trash into the smallest volume possible and to waste as little as possible because we don’t want to carry the extra weight. So food is not wasted, but eaten. Whatever wrappings are left over are consolidated into a very small space. I can put a weeks’ worth of trash in a single quart size Ziploc bag. It makes me want to reduce the amount of trash that I make at home. We do recycle, but even so, the amount of trash we produce is quite large. I know we can do better.

Thought three: Silence. Being in a silent environment for 8 to 10 hours a day for days on end transforms one, and you begin to realize just how much we try to fill a minds with noisy bits of distraction; email, music, media, news, entertainment, texts, social media, etc.

When I’m on campus, every student I see between classes has their head buried in their phone, even if they’re walking. In fact, I play a game when I see a student walking toward me with their device in hand. I stand in front of them, stop, and see how long it takes them to realize that somebody is in their way. Many just simply bump into me because they’re so oblivious to what is going on around them. This has become a pet peeve of mine and something that I despise. I think though it’s a case where I despise in others what I most despise in myself. I’m a person who is relatively comfortable in silence, yet I still fill my days with these bits and pieces of distraction. When I’m on the trail, a song gets stuck in my mind and I can’t seem to get rid of it. It is as if I’ve been trained to fill up the silence with stuff. What void is there that we are trying to fill?

Thought four: Hope. Remember the rant I had the other day about the potheads? I really let them get to me and make my mood negative. That affected my whole day. On the flip side, there’s been a couple hiking along with me for the past week or so: trail names-Solar and Latte. Solar could be my brother by another mother. He’s about my age, retired, uses a CPAP machine (on the trail! Hence the name), has high blood pressure, and has many other attributes in common – the whole works. He’s hiking the trail for his health along with his wife. 

Although Solar and Latte have a health and fitness level more like me, and by that I mean they struggle to hike the trail, their attitude is overwhelmingly positive.”They are hopeful. Their positive attitude gives them strength for the trail that I sometimes struggle with. They reminded me just how much hope counts.

You’ve gotta ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive

E-lim-i-nate the negative

And latch on to the affirmative

Don’t mess with Mr. In-between

You got to spread joy up to the maximum

Bring gloom down to the minimum

Otherwise (otherwise), pandemonium

Liable to walk upon the scene

Bing Crosby

Allyson here: I’m not sure why David didn’t put the song lyrics from Life of Brian.

If life seems jolly rotten
There’s something you’ve forgotten
And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing
When you’re feeling in the dumps
Don’t be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle, that’s the thing
And

Always look on the bright side of life
(Come on)
Always look on the right side of life

Thought five: RAIN. I love it & I hate it. It refreshes me & it makes my boots squishy. It raises my spirits & it really brings me down. RAIN ‘nuff said.

Thought six: Providence. I’ve commented before that the further I go, the more I realize the less I need. I eat less food, send more supplies home, giveaway stuff. But what I realized is that this is just the beginning stage of true trust in providence. All of the necessities, food, water shelter, at every turn these have been provided, even when I have been anxious about them. But it’s more than just about providence. What it’s really about is living in the moment. That’s a hard thing to do for a lifelong manager/planner, but perhaps is the most important lesson so far.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat [or drink], or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? 27 Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?[q] 28 Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wild flowers grow. They do not work or spin. 29 But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. 30 [r]If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? 31 So do not worry and say, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear?’ 32 All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33 But seek first the kingdom [of God] and his righteousness,[s]and all these things will be given you besides. 34 Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.

Matthew 6:25

Today’s mileage: 0.0

Total trail miles: 194.2

Today was a better day. While the trail was actually a little bit more difficult, especially with a stiff descent into Port Clinton, my cough from the last several days is almost remediated. I owe it to all your prayers and Mother Mary. Although my feet are still fairly painful, perhaps I’m getting used to walking on the rocks. To pass the time today, I made some example videos of different kinds of rocks that we hike across such as 100% trail that we can go our full pace, 75% trail, 50% trail, and 25% trail, which are essentially boulder fields.

When I got into town, I stopped at the world-famous Port Clinton barbershop. There are really knows words to describe it. I’ll post some pictures tomorrow. Next, I found the Saint John’s pavilion, which is a church pavilion that the parish allows hikers to use to spend the night. I’m gonna spend the next two nights here. It turns out that there is a shuttle that runs three times a day from Hamburg, Pennsylvania, which is home to the largest Cabela’s in the United States. The shuttle comes to the pavilion specifically to pick up AT hikers and take them into town to buy gear at Cabela’s. Since I’m taking a zero day tomorrow, I’m going to ride into Cabela’s in the morning, do some shopping, stuff my face with restaurant food, then come back here to the pavilion one last night. I’m taking a zero day tomorrow for several reasons. First my feet are killing me, they need to rest. Second, it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, and that makes for a miserable day.

Even though the trail was harder today, I think my spirits were higher primarily because I had more of a right attitude today. Yesterday was very hard, one of those days that you fantasize dozens of reasons why you should pull off the trail. Hiking is like that, good days and bad days.

Today’s mileage: 9.2

Total trail miles: 194.2