Date: 2014-06-24
From: Brink Road Shelter

To: Rutherford Shelter
Miles today: 15.3
Weather: broken clouds

Day 41: An interesting thing happened at about midnight when Spider woke to see small lights outside the tent. At first he thought it was a couple of hikers with their headlamps on...but then he realized it was lightning bugs. This took him back to his summer nights in the Midwest. When he told ET the next morning, she was disappointed to have missed it. Being a West Coast girl, she has never seen lightning bugs.We awoke to a partly cloudy sky and a temperature of 60 degrees. We took our time getting up and out because the plan was to hit a tavern about 3.6 miles away for breakfast. Since the tavern didn't open until 9am, we didn't need to leave until around 7am. Spider had also found, when researching for the hike, another place in the same general area of the tavern that was called Joe To Go Deli, but couldn't find out it's hours. So we were going to check it out too. We finally hit the trail at 6:40am.As usual, we had a climb back to the ridge. Like yesterday, once on the ridge, we had some nice views of New Jersey to the south. We also saw large Culver Lake with the handsome summer homes lining the shores.At 8:40am we dropped into Culver Gap and began our quest for breakfast. The second building we passed was Joe To Go Deli, and it was open. On the window was an ad for a breakfast special of a breakfast sandwich (eggs, cheese and choice of meat on a Kaiser roll) and a small coffee for $3.50. That's better than McDonald's. So we went no further. There was another sign in the window saying that there was a "hiker bench" on the side of the building for "your gear and REAR". We took the hint; no hikers and their "junk" around the front door. So we put our packs on the bench and went inside. We ordered 2 of the specials, plus an OJ and 2 milks, and, of course, Spider had to have a donut! Back outside, with our "rears" on the hiker bench, we enjoyed our breakfast. It sure was better than Tang and oatmeal!Back on the trail, we had a 500-foot climb out of Culver Gap. Unfortunately, we never reached the edge of the cliff to overlook New Jersey again. The trail stayed in the trees, or moved in and out of various gullies.We did get a spectacular, 360 degree view from the top of Sunset Mountain. An elaborate gazebo made of stone with wooden seats sat atop the mountain. A nearby parking lot allowed others to get the view, with considerably less effort than we had just expended over the last couple of hours.We didn't have the benefits of some abandoned logging roads today to help make some miles, so we had to walk a rocky trail all day. As I write this, we are lying in our tent, with our feet throbbing from being stretched this way and that, on rocks.We finally arrived at our destination shelter at 4:15pm. As I write this post, we are the only ones here...and, interestingly, we were not passed by any thru-hikers today.Major milestone: Today we passed the 450 mile mark for this hike. Less than 50 miles to go!Animal and plant sightings: We saw a Cottontail rabbit, a frog and a wild turkey (the animal kind not the drinking kind) this morning and 2 doe deer, one with a spotted fawn. We have been seeing lots of wild roses blooming, so decided to take the attached photo of one today.