Date: 2005-07-31
From: Bake Oven Shelter

To: Palmerton, PA
Miles today: 12.7
Weather: overcast clouds

Forty years ago (oh-my-Gosh ¢ FORTY YEARS!!) my college fraternity brother, Bill ¢Tree¢ Stephens and I were Cadets at an ROTC Summer Training Encampment at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod. That summer was hot and there was always a lot of physical challenging stuff going on.Today, during the three hours as I climbed up the rocky face of Lehigh Gap and walked across the barren, hot ridge to Little Gap, my thoughts were repeatedly drawn back to that summer of my youth. At some psychological level it must have seemed like "d© j vu all over again" (thank yuou, Yogi Berra!). Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the strangeness of the barren landscape completely stripped of all vegetation many years ago by noxious fumes from Palmerton¢s zinc processing plant that was at one time the largest of it¢s kind in the world. Maybe it was the new growth of scrub pines and hearty ground plants soare so reminiscent of those found on Cape Cod that are now beginning to reclaim the barren earth. Maybe it was the ¢marching tempo¢ I was able to maintain, freed from having to carry my pack for this afternoons segment as I ¢slack packed¢ my way under the July sun.What ever it was, my feet were in Pennsylvania today, but my mind was on Cape Cod some 40 years ago, remembering experiences I thought were way beyond possible to resurrect.This morning began early after a GREAT night¢s sleep and I felt really energized. By 10:30 I was in downtown Palmerton, having hitched a ride from the bridge where the AT crosses the Lehigh River. I changed clothes in the UCC church¢s men¢s room having arrived too late for their summer worship service. I, nevertheless, availed myself of their leftover fellowship-hour coffee and homemade muffins before heading across the main drag to the local Laundromat. While my clothes were drying I enjoyed a sausage and cheese omelett next door at Bert¢s Steakhouse (aka ¢diner¢.) Later, as I stood in the Laundromat folding my clothes (what for... I just jammed them into my stuff sack when I was finished, anyway!?!), I got talking with a fellow named Wayne ¢ a really nice older fellow (i.e. about my age) who¢s wife is in the hospital with diabetes. He was kind enough to drive me to the Roth House where I had a reservation and a drop box waiting. (It was then that I realized that the Roth House B&B is a good 5 miles out of town near the base of the Blue Mountain Ski area at Little Gap.) Wayne was nice enough to wait there while I changed my clothes, and then he took me back through town and up to Lehigh Gap where I had left the Trail a few hours earlier.   Wayne talked the whole time about how nice the town was and how happy he and his wife are to be living there now having moved there just four years ago. He told me that the town has a 10PM curfew for teenagers (11PM on weekends) and, if caught outdoors after that, the police pick them up and take them home. On the third infraction parents get fined. Interesting. Can you imagine the reaction if the populace tried that in New York City? When I finished my unanticipated afternoon "slack pack" to Little Gap, I luckily hitched a ride right to the B&B. Dinner was at the bar at the Covered Bridge Inn (¢CBI¢ to the locals) where I treated myself to the ¢best chicken wings in town¢ (but then there¢s no other place in town that serves chicken wings according to the bartender!), a steak, French fries, corn on the cob, and salad with a ton of blue cheese dressing. After chit-chatting with the owners of the Roth House I retired to my room to unpack the things from my waiting drop box that I had sent to myself and pack up a "bounce box¢ of the things I won¢t be needing for the next few days. I plan to spend the next two nights in motels/B&B¢s that are located close to the Trail. Before I left home my pack ¢base weight¢ was an impressive 22 lbs (without food and water) but for the next two days it will probably be less than 10 lbs with no food to carry except possibly a store bought sandwich for lunch. It¢ll be fun traveling so light.