Date: 2007-10-17
From: Peter Mountain Shelter

To: Duncannon at the Doyle
Miles today: 11.7
Weather: few clouds

Mi. 11.7Sleep hotelDest. Duncannon, at the DoyleDay 97Another great night in the hammock tonight. It is looking like I'll be spending a couple nights in town, so I wanted to enjoy it.I heard north bounders when I started talking about what they will enjoy the most when they get back. I think about that time to time. I think I really only came up with 2 things that I will enjoy not doing. Nothing too bad, just little things that I will enjoy. The first is to eat and read by light other than headlamp. To get enough day light hiking hours I am usually up and eating before sunrise, which means eating by headlamp. By the time that we get to camp in the evenings it is either getting dark or dark, or it is dark by the time I start eating. I usually get the hammock setup first and get water while there is light to do that. After dinner I usually read or journal for a couple hours before bed. The second wasn't an issue this morning. It is putting on wet cold clothes in the morning. I can deal with the dirt and the filth, that doesn't effect me anymore. But the cold wetness. It rained a little last night. Luckily I learned my lesson and had my clothes hanging in the shelter. If I was going to stay in the shelter tonight, I would have chosen the old one next to the new one. The new one is this huge one with a loft and porch fitting 30 people on a rainy day, just Torque and I here tonight. The old one next to it is the last remaining one that Earl Shaffer built on the AT out of the 6 total. For those who do not know he is the first one to thru hike the AT in '48 I think. It has seen better days, but still looks waterproof. The hike into town wasn't bad at all. Some rocks, but I think I am getting out of them. Pretty soon I will be in the rolling hills and farmland I heard so much about. The rocks are really not that bad. I heard a lot of north bounders complain or warn me about them. By the time south bounders get here they have seen this before and worst. Everyone is commenting about that in the registers. It will be nice to get out of them though. Make it a little easier on the feet and I'll be able to get a few more miles in. Now onto the fun things. Tonight I am staying in the famous trail town of Duncannon, PA. It is another one of those towns that the trail goes right through. It is a town of all of 3 or 4 thousand people. Close in size to my hometown. The trail used to go right down Market St. Now it goes down a another street, then rejoins this street on the other end of town. But I had no thoughts of taking that route. We made our own little blue blaze. I like to refer to it as taking the historic route. It was the old AT until around 2000. The for this it goes past the Doyle hotel. It is a really old hotel in town that caters to hikers. Ahh the Doyle. This is really one of those places that have to be experienced in person. It is an old hotel had in the early 1900's by one of the beer companies, I think it was Anhesier. It has that old charm to it. It also has that old building look and charm. We got there around 3pm to lunch. The food there is great. Everything is really inexpensive. It's target people are hikers, locals go there too. But $1.50 or $1.75 pints of Yuengling an a couple microbrews. Lets just say I started a tab. Lunch was a huge cheese steak and fries, along with a couple beers. Torque and I checked into our room. We decided to save a few bucks and share a room. It was only $30 plus tax for a double. In keeping with the old theme, there are community bathrooms not one in each room. We were warned about the hot water. Basically if someone on the floor below you flushed the toliet, you better get out of the way because the stream was a come'n. When I was taking my shower I experienced this first hand. They were not joking. When I was done I looked around the bathroom a little bit. I noticed a drip or 2 of water hitting me from above. I looked up to see a big hole in the celling and the plumbing to the shower above expose. Torque was up there taking a shower. Best of all the drip of water came from off of an electrical wire. First class all the way. Yet another reason I was drinking a beverage in the shower, you never know. One great thing that they put on and the local grocery store is shuttles. If you tell them ahead of time someone comes at 4pm to take you to the store and back for free. I love towns like this. PA has been full of them. I'm back into places that are really helpful and catering to hikers. It seemed like through the New England states it was more of a profit thing than a helping thing. Different here and farther north. At this time the plan was for a 1 day resupply to get to Boiling Springs. I have a mail drop waiting there. I am finally picking up my cell phone. I figure I will give it a try and see what happens. It is nice to call and organize shuttles and logistics. Plus I will be able to talk to people back home without being chained to a pay phone. There is also going to be some snacks, dinners, and breakfests sent there. Somehow I still managed to spend $30. I think it was the post store gluteny that I was planning. But a pint of Ben and Jerry's, a big piece of cake, and some frosting didn't make it too long. Torque and I have been talking about it. But I am carrying choclate frosting now. He picked up some cream cheese. Back at the hotel the gorging started. First ice cream with frosting, which was better than I could have imagined. Then a couple beers. I made a phone call home as torque was in the bar using the PC. I came down to go for some dinner to find him talking to a north bounder. She was passing through. She finished her hike last month. She was having issues adjusting and went with a couple friends to Rusty's for a couple days. She was stopping through here on her way back home. From what I can tell her hike was vastly different than mine. She was hiking with a big group and did a lot of slacking. She said that she would come back out in an instant if all her hiking friends wanted to go. I got to thinking about that. Too me the people have been great, but maybe I haven't been with any for long enough to make that the deciding factor. I guess for me I would rather go out and create new experiences and memories instead of reliving old ones. She said another interesting thing. People who go back with something lined up have an easier time adjusting. Well I can't that I have anything lined up. All I have is a couple weeks of school work, then the unknown. Can't wait. Then it was off to second dinner. The place a couple doors down has $1 tacos. The 5 was a nice snack. While eating I got a chance to read the local paper. It's interesting how now I like to read the news when I can. Before I didn't care to. Maybe it has something to do with the fact I only read it every week or 2. We went back to the Doyle and were enjoying a couple beverages when someone rolled in. Another Southbounder by the name of Two Step. She was held up at Trail Angel Mary's for a couple weeks, more on here tomorrow. She had a foot issue. Get this though. She is from Cincinnati. She has been hearing about me for a couple weeks now and wondering when I was going to get into town. We got to talking about Cincy. Now this is hard to believe. Her faviorite dive bar is also mine. Come on what are the odds. I know I haven't been there as much in the last year, but I was there a lot. It is a small irish pub by the name of Hap's. Really small. We even knew some of the same people that are regulars there. We talked and the few of us got to playing photo hunt, a great bar game. Although this was probably the hardest photo's ever. Torque checked the weather. It looked like a chance of rain tomorrow, but thunderstorms Friday. Can't say I want to hike in that. I also didn't want to take a few zeros in town. We got to talking about it and Two Step suggested we have Mary slack us. We went down to The Pub where she works. We talked to her and she would slack us to Boiling Springs and take us back up there for $40 in gas money. Sounded good to us. Her car is a beast and would use all of that in gas. Boiling Springs is 25.7 trail miles away. Looks like a marathon is in order. I'll have to wait and see what I got us into.Believe it or not both of us went to bed without getting drunk. That has to be a record time for hikers of age. This is one of those towns thru hikers go to drink up. There turns out to be a group of 12 5 days in front. A huge group be south bounder standards. Basically everyone I had hiked with a couple others met up here. They apparently lived it up for 3 days. If I am only this far back I should catch them at some point. They do big miles, but zero a lot. Can't say want to hike in a group of that size though. Sorry for the long entry. I have axcess to a PC and can actually type for once.