Date: 2009-06-13
From: Comfort Inn (Pine Grove, PA)

To: Comfort Inn (Pine Grove, PA)
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

We left Harpers Ferry and it's great plethora of John Brown memorabilia under a warm, bright sun. We clacked over a train trestle which spanned the Potomac River and there we were, in Maryland. What can you really say about Maryland? At the end of our first day in the state it began to rain ... and continued to rain for the remainder of our traverse through the state. Of course, it was only another 48 hours before we found ourselves sliding into the state of Pennsylvania. Now, Pennsylvania has a reputation on the A.T. for being rocky. And it is. We couldn't have gone more than a quarter of a mile without having to step over/around/along/twist around some form of rock. It ranges from small stones the size of a golf ball (with a point on them like a sword ... and it's sticking straight up out of the ground) to large, SUV size boulders you have to climb across. It's a constant challenge on the ankle and the knee to keep you upright. And thank goodness for trekking poles. They've saved us from several spills (and if you fall on these rocks it isn't a little "oh, that hurt me a touch, oh my"; it's more of a re-enactment of the torture device known as the Iron Maiden). This we can say, though: despite what you may hear, the South is not the friendliest part of the country. Pennsylvania has won that honor, hands down. Being born in the South, this was originally a sore point for me, but it can't be denied. Sorry Dixie. Shortly after entering Pennsylvania we came to Pine Grove Furnace State Park. This is a point of trail legend due to it being the home of the Half-Gallon Challenge. For this challenge, a hungry hiker attempts to consume a half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting. Now, let's put that in perspective, shall we. You go to your local grocery and pick-up your favorite Ben and Jerry's flavor. That is one pint. There are four of those in a half-gallon. We cruised in around two o'clock and stood before the freezer, like some doomed soul having to choose which instrument he would be murdered with. After some time, Amanda chooses mint chocolate chip. I go with chocolate chip cookie dough. We take seats with some of our new hiker friends: Tax Dollar (going with Vanilla), Black Kat (also working with cookie dough) and Lost Acadian (daringly choosing peanut butter crunch). From here on, life swirled into a haze of lactose intolerance, gut-busting mouthfuls and pre-diarrhea. Lost Acadian gets about halfway before declaring it a wash. Tax Dollar makes it slightly over halfway before announcing, for fear of imminent stomach explosion, the end of his challenge. Amanda, sadly, has roughly eight bites and can take no more. Black Kat and I are still gnoshing away. And ... we both finish. My time was exactly 50 minutes from first bite to last. And, no, I was not in the best physical state after having eaten half a gallon of ice cream. To memorialize our great feat, Black Kat and I are presented with a small wooden spoon stenciled with the words "Half Gallon Challenge Club". It's the type of spoon you would get with a small cup of ice cream; the kind of spoon that would have turned to sawdust had you tried to use it to eat the amount of ice cream you'd just shoved down your throat. Only while hiking the AT could you consume such large amounts of ice cream and not go immediately into hypo-glycemic shock. Some great folks gave us a ride from Pine Grove Furnace to the local hotel ... in a convertible. All of us. Total, there were seven people in what was basically a two seater. Driving through the Pennsylvania heat, hanging out of a car with a pack on your back .... These are the moments you will never forget. I woke up the next morning with a sugar hangover, which helped facilitate a slack-pack day. We (Amanda, Black Kat, Lost Acadian, Tax Dollar and I) did the twenty miles before Pine Grove Furnace and Boiling Springs. Luckily, that burned off most of the ice cream and by that evening I was ravenous again. A few days later, just outside of Duncannon, as we got our gear together in the morning, we were given a true treat: a large bear came meandering into the shelter area. This puts our bear count at six. Now, you may not know this, but hikers are pretty easy to please. We live in a tent, drink from streams, eat dried mash potatoes all day, poop in the woods and bath about once a week. It doesn't take much to make us feel like we're in the Taj Mahal. Thus, you have to have a special filter for any information you get on the trail. If some says X or X hotel is "amazing", then you can guess that you, the hiker, will love it. However, it probably won't be the kind of place you would want to have a wedding reception, if you get my drift. Must-stops on the trail tend to be, with a critical eye, a bit underwhelming. Well, let me tell you about one place that lives up entirely to it's reputation: The Doyle Hotel in Duncannon, Pennsylvania. This place can only be described as magically trashy. It's over 100 years old ... and it shows. The rooms are horrible ... and so wonderful simultaneously. The bathrooms are shared and while you stand in the shower (and you leave your crocs on while you're in there!) you can amuse yourself by examining the plumbing of the shower one floor above you. Also, you'll be kept physically fit by leaping out periodically as scalding hot water suddenly shoots out at you, scalding the eyebrows from your face. You always have up-to-the-minute weather reports from the hole in the hallway ceiling and there's an all you can contract Hepatitis B buffet. But, you can't help but love this place. As I said ... magically trashy. They have a restaurant/bar on the first floor where a Comfort and Coke goes for $2.50! Locals come and get smashed in the bar and then stumble upstairs, find an empty room and crash. Several years ago, a thru-hiker opened the door to his room to find Mike, one of hte local drunks, dead on the floor. Yes, dead! Magically trashy. We came into Duncannon just before the hail storm started and were happy and warm in the bar from about one o'clock to eleven, at which point we retired to bed (after watching in the Penguins whoop up on the Redwings in the Stanley Cup) in our lovely floral sheets. (By the way, some of our friends as they were leaving peeked into our already vacant and cleaned room ... only to see the same floral sheets on the bed, just nicely made. There's a mental image for you. Me, snuggling up to my pillow for a nice nights sleep. Twenty-four hours earlier, two people making raunchy, sweaty love on it.) All this is to say, ironically, that every one of you must visit The Doyle at some point in your life. Yes, go to Paris, see the Golden Gate, go skydiving, but also go to The Doyle. Your life will be incomplete until you do. Today, finds us three days past Duncannon in Pine Grove. We're zeroing, resting the body up for the next push, in the Comfort Inn. We're drinking coffee, flushing the toilet and enjoying other mystical luxuries as our tent dries in the sun. We're closer to the end of the trail than we are to the beginning and it has begun to cause a strange sensation in us. There's a creeping thought in the back of the mind suddenly: this will end. And, strangely, this is not a very comforting feeling. This trail, this little town, 2,100 miles long and ten feet wide, is our home. These hikers are our friends ... our family. And soon we'll all be tossed to the wind and who knows what will become of us all. But, for now at least, there are months still to do. As Frost said "The woods are lovely, dark and deep / But I have promises to keep / and miles to go before I sleep / and miles to go before I sleep."