Date: 2005-08-31
From: 501 Shelter, PA

To: PA 443, PA
Miles today: 12.7

12.7 miles todaySleeping in a real bedHoney Boy and Dee's homeBethel, Pa. I'm at Rt 443 on the trail, even though I'm sleeping in Bethal, Pa again. I planned on a short day today so I could spend a little more time visiting with Honey Boy and Dee since this is going to be my last day here. I woke up later than usual. We weren't leaving here until almost 10am. I had a very good breakfast with lots of fruit, pancakes with real maple syrup and bacon...oh yeah, and coffee. :-))) I got my stuff ready. I'm only walking a very few miles today, but I packed more food than for yesterday's hike. Honey Boy dropped me off at Rt 501 and I got started walking at 10:05am. I only went .1 miles and when I got to Dick Kimmel Lookout, I ran into Diddy sitting there. We ended up walking the next 4 miles together to William Penn Shelter. Diddy is from Maryland and delivers pizza, so I asked what's a fair tip for a pizza guy. He said $2.00 to $3.00 is average. I always felt like I wasn't giving enough, but I guess I was doing ok. I walked down to the shelter and signed the register. I wasn't in too much of a hurry, so I read through the register for a while. I left and saw Diddy still sitting at the trail eating an early lunch. I hiked on. It was breezy out today from the remains of the hurricane. There were only a few rain drops, but the forest and the leaves stayed wet all day. That kept me wet. There's been alot of horse flies the last couple of days. There's alot less living horse flies now. ;-))) They have been biting me if I don't get them first. I saw another box turtle in the trail. That makes 3 of those little buggers I've seen on this hike. There was a few rocky areas, but mostly pretty easy trail toady. I walked down to Swatara Gap and walked over the old iron bridge where Hippie finished her flip-flop thru hike last year when we were hiking together. That was a memorable event. We got to the iron bridge, I said congratulations and took her picture and then we kept walking to Virginia. Katahdin is a great place to finish a thru hike, not Swatara Gap, Pa or Glasgow, Va. Those are the places we finished our thru hikes last year. When you finish in those places, it only makes sense to keep on walking, but then I guess it makes sense to keep on walking after Katahdin too. I walked on to Pa 443 and got there at 2:30pm. Honey Boy showed up about 3 minutes later and we headed back to his house. I helped him try to start a 1950 Ford tractor to smooth out his gravel road, but it wouldn't start, so we took his old Dodge pickup with a snow plow on front and smoothed out the road. It worked surprisingly well with the wet gravel. We stopped by an Amish grocery store and picked up a few items, then went out for a fantastic chicken dinner at a country restaurant in what seemed like was the middle of nowhere. It was very good. Honey Boy would not let me pay for anything...and I really tried. Thanks Honey Boy, you and your wife are very generous. We came back to the house and I answered a few emails and made plans to meet with Goosebump The Snow Princess, Baby Bump and Rainbow Slick on Friday night at Darlington Shelter. It will be great to see them again. I hear Baby Bump has 2 teeth now, so she will be much better looking than when she was a newborn baby. :-))) It's going to be hard to leave here tomorrow. I keep looking for someone to adopt this 52 year old fine baby boy, but it seems like 2 to 3 days and everyone boots me out. Ha!!