Pennsylvania
So Icky, Huma and I are in Pennsylvania and were trying to make some time. Since we have my blazer, we're trying to slackpack some big miles. It gets to be a real hassle moving the car around. We always have to break up, move the car around, pickup the car and it get to be a real hassle. When we reached Boiling Springs, we ditched the car. (The people at the ATC office there were nice enough to let me leave it there.)
Here's Huma and I somewhere in Pennsylvania. It seems like every town we passed through was a dump. In Duncannon there was this rundown crappy hotel were they let hikers stay. That place wasn't even good enough for the rats! (Yeah, I stayed there.)
I stole this picture from Swamp Fox because it's a good shot of that crappy hotel and some hikers just relaxing. Apparently the "manager" in the wife beater never heard the term "Fire Hazard" or "Education"
So we blow out of that dump pretty quick, and we keep going hard. The first day out of Duncannon we did 16 miles. Man, it's always hard the first day out of town. The next day was 23 miles and the next 21, you get the idea. Oh yeah, no one knew what happened to Grumpy Squat. I lost touch with him in Virginia and haven't seen him since.
I call my wife and she tells me that Grumpy Squat called and he's in some hotel in P.A. We head over there and we find out why he was off the trail. He drank some bad water in Catawba, VA and got real sick (A lot of hikers did) He was taking medicine and the side effect was that it messed up all his joints. (His knees were the size of grapefruits!) We used Grumpy as a driver and Slackpacked our way into Port Clinton.
When we get to Port Clinton, we stopped at the Pavilion. Some guy brought soda and stuff for all the hikers which was real nice considering there was a real bad drought and we had a hard time getting water. Grumpy and I headed back home (I had to go to another wedding!) and Icky went to stay with the grandparents of his psycho ex-girlfriend. We left huma there. I came back in 3 days with my wife (Grumpy stayed home, his hike was done. The poor guy was walking like he was 100 years old.) and met Icky at the Pavilion again. Apparently, Huma hooked up with spliff (who was home) and went on some kind of drug bender! He said he was out of money and he was done. That sucked because he was a good guy that said funny stuff like "I'm like a fucking oracle, dude." and "like, I beat off all around here, dude." Oh well, another one down and Icky and I are still going. (With Lori)
We leave the car in Port Clinton and head out. I see T-max briefly and we take off. I'm still having a chaffing problem that's just killing me and it's more than 100 degrees out for a couple of days. We end up staying in the jail house hostel in Palmerton with Just Devine. That was some of the worst hiking I did because of the heat. It really slowed us down. Just before we hit Delaware Water Gap, we hit a road and hitchhiked 70 miles back to our car because my wife has to go to work that night. When we get there, we find the windows broken and my cell phone gone. That really pissed me off, but what can you do? The funny thing is, someone mailed my phone back to me a couple of weeks later and said they deserved a reward for being honest! Ya gotta love those P.A. Gangstaz livin' the thug life, Bitch! (we saw that phrase spray painted in the middle of the road in P.A. A state well know for it's hardcore gangs.)
Here's Icky and resting up at the church hostel in DWG, P.A. On to New Jersey.