Date: 2006-10-30
From: Port Clinton, Pa

To: Port Clinton, Pa
Miles today: 26.7
Weather: clear sky

Today's entry is going to cover three days.....10-21, 10-22 and today, 10-30. I'm going to try and remember as much as I can about the two days that didn't get posted before I had to unexpectedly go to Florida. On 10-21, Yolanda and I had left early in the morning from tenting near Rt 309. We were walking along and Yolanda got ahead of me. I saw a car stop on the gravel road up ahead and the guy was looking up the Trail. I was way too far back to see who it was, but I figured it was another hunter looking to see if there were any deer around. When I got to the road, I saw Yolanda over talking to a guy. When I looked at the guy, I saw it was Tricks....a good friend of ours. He was out looking for Superstar to give her a chance to slack some. We told him that Superstar was probably still in Palmerton, but we wouldn't mind slacking. :-))) He took our packs and we were off walking south. We were walking along and another friend came walking north on the Trail. It was Rambler and he had come out to see if we needed any help. He turned around and walked a couple miles with us to the road. Tricks met us near Eckville Shelter which was almost 10 miles of slacking. It felt good to slack. I had been looking at my guidebook and could see that we couldn't make it to the next road before dark. Tricks knows this area really well and said that we could skip a 5 mile section of the Trail near the Pinnacle on a blue blaze, we'd get in before dark, then we could all go out for pizza. Rambler walked that next section with us to Windsor Furnace, then we all went out for that pizza. :-))) Tricks said he would drive me up to Delaware Water Gap to pick up my truck. We dropped Rambler off at his car on the way to get my truck. It was good seeing him again and nice to get to walk with him for 7 or 8 miles. We all drove back to Port Clinton after getting my truck and the three of us set up our tents near the river across from the Pavilion. On 10-22, Tricks dropped Yolanda and I off at Windsor Furnace again and we walked back to Port Clinton....just 5.9 miles. When I called my Mom later in the day, I got the bad news that she had slipped into a coma and just shortly after I called, she passed away. I left Yolanda to finish the last 70 miles of her thru hike by herself and I drove to Florida to be with family. I had decided that after we had the funeral, I was going to head back up to the Trail and walk, well I left Friday after I had been in Florida about a week. I had also found out that the weather had turned bad after I left the Trail and Yolanda had gone home. Turns out she was coming back out to the Trail and we were going to miss each other by one day, so we made new plans and decided to walk together for the rest of her thru hike. I'm always amazed at just how well things work out on the Trail if you go with the flow and don't force anything. I got up to near Port Clinton on Sunday and met up with Yolanda on Monday at The Doyle. We parked her car there, then worked our way up to near Port Clinton again. I knew this would probably be the only time this year for me to go back and walk that short section of Trail that I missed when Tricks was helping us out, so we headed out to Windsor Furnace and walked north on the AT up to the Pinnacle, spent a short time there, took a few pictures, then kept going until we got to where we took the blue blaze trail last week. We walked that back to the truck. It was getting near dark, so we headed over to where we are hoping to meet up with Honey Boy in the morning to get a shuttle back to Port Clinton. If all works out, we will walk from there to Duncannon, Yolanda will go home and I'll keep walking to Catawba, Va to finish my thru hike for the year. I want to thank everyone again for all the kind words you sent of my Mother's passing....Trail people are the best!!!!