Date: 2005-06-28
From: Larry's House (Cascade, MD)

To: Quarry Gap Shelters
Miles today: 20.7
Weather: broken clouds

9:16pm - CaledoniaSome people hold up the wheel as mankind's greatest invention. Others argue differently - electricity, the Internet, or maybe the internal combustion engine. They're all wrong. Mankind's greatest invention is the Monte Cristo.The Monte Cristo is pure goodness between two slices of heaven. Less figuratively, it's ham and turkey bookended by swiss chees, nestled between two slices of french toast and topped with maple syrup. Life is good when a day starts with a Monte Cristo. Today, my day began with a Monte Cristo, served up by Larry.Larry dropped me off at Pen Mar Park and I crossed the Mason Dixon line 0.2 miles later to enter Pennsylvania. Two hours and 7.5 miles later, he met me with my pack, a sandwich, and a thermos of ice water. Yup - it was the return of slackpacking.I ate lunch with him at Old Forge Picnic Ground and then set off for Caledonia Park and an evening rendezvous. It was a hot afternoon on an unremarkable trail. I did, however, retrace a small portion of the AT I did during a 24 hour orienteering race a year ago. I saw a ridge that I had traversed for two miles in the dark. Today I realized that the AT parallels that ridge 30 yards west. Damn that outdated USGS map! Attention ATC: any effort you make to inform the USGS about trail reroutes since 1962 will be greatly appreciated.Did I mention it was hot and humid? I was sweating buckets, and unfortunately mistimed my water. By the time I reached Caledonia I had stopped sweating and was close to being dehydrated. I stopped for a 30 minute water break, slowly downing a liter and a half. I felt much better and set off for the final two miles.Sleeveless and Socks were at the shelter when I arrived. Sleeveless, it seems, was attacked by a raccoon two nights ago. I had seen a note about some sort of attack at the Pine Knob Shelter yesterday and noticed it was closed until further notice but didn't think it was someone I knew. She now has to get rabies shots once a week - it sounded like a vicious unprovoked attack.Popsicle was also here with Moose, and she, too, had a story to tell. She's been dropping a cooler of drinks along the trail for the last two weeks. In Harper's Ferry, someone at the ATC warned her that she was destroying the wilderness experience for hikers - from a distance, the cooler's Wal-Mart logo looked like graffiti. Come on, ATC - have you ever thru-hiked? There's no wilderness experience at a friggin' road crossing! Would all offended thru-hikers raise their hands that would have preferred not to have a soda? Yeah, that's what I thought. Nobody.The shelter itself is fantastic. It's the cleanest shelter I've ever seen and freshly painted. The "innkeeper" has also left flowers in hanging baskets. It's high class indeed.Finally, Bonnie showed up at 6:30 with Subway Subs in hand. I may have broken my streak of six nights showering but I kept alive my 7 meal sandwich streak. Bonnie will be joining me for a few days - the last visitation from home I'll have for a while. We caught up for a while and then darkness caught up, too. Now it's time to catch up on sleep.