Date: 2006-10-19
From: Hahn's Lookout, Pa

To: Palmerton, Pa
Miles today: 19.4

I slept great last night!! I think I woke up once in the middle of the night, then the next I knew, it was 5am. I stayed in my sleeping bag for another minute, then checked my watch and it somehow got to be 6:30am already. I could hear Yolanda moving around in her tent, so I ate a blueberry muffin and a pastry I packed out of town yesterday. I also had my Starbuck's replacement...it's called Jolt Caffeine Gum. :-((( That stuff is working out though and I haven't missed carrying my stove one time since I ditched it over 500 miles ago. I got packed up and started walking at 7:10am. It was a mild morning at about 50 degrees and I could feel more moisture in the air. I walked about 10 minutes and I found Yolanda sitting on a rock overlook waiting on me. My foot was feeling pretty good this morning, but it wasn't long before the rocks started working on it. We walked on and walked right by the side trail to Leroy A. Smith Shelter without stopping. I knew I had about 20 miles to walk today to get into Palmerton, so I just kept moving...slowly. I walked by Smith Gap, then Stempa Spring, then Delp's Spring without stopping. Yolanda would stop and take off a jacket or stop and put on a jacket, but I just kept walking. It's easy for her to catch up to me at the pace I have to go. I was actually getting tired of having my head down all day looking at where I should place my foot to miss the worst of the rocks. That doesn't even work too well right now because there are so many leaves laying in the Trail and they hide all the pointed rocks, so I end up stepping on the buggers all the time anyway. We came to the steep rocky descent to Little Gap and took a short break. The leaves on the trees were beautiful...some of the best colors I've seen yet. Yolanda even said the colors weren't anywhere near as nice in Vermont. I ate some snacks, drank some water then we finished walking down the hill to Little Gap, crossed that and started climbing to the ridge that takes us over to Lehigh Gap. It helped to get in that area because the rocks weren't as bad. I just kept on walking. Yolanda would stop and do something, then catch up again. I was surprised to see some gun hunters out today. I had very little blaze orange with me because I thought gun season started next month, but we found out there is a three day senior and kids hunt going on right now. We walked through the reclamation site and on down to Lehigh Gap and then in to Palmerton. I was hungry and tired, but we decided to see about getting checked into the Jailhouse Hostel first. The last guy was just starting his car to head home for the day when he saw us walk up. He stopped the car and opened up the building to check us in. I've always said that the people in Palmerton are the nicest people along the entire Trail. We dropped off our backpacks and walked across the street to Bert's Steakhouse for dinner, then I went to the grocery store for desert while Yolanda went back to the hostel and took a shower...a much needed shower. ;-))) My feet are really sore tonight. Hopefully they will be better by morning. We are going to do some shorter days for a while and see if that helps. I'm up to 125 leaves now...even with looking down at the rocks in the Trail all day. I made two quick grabs that netted my 2 leaves for the day. I took away one of Goosebump The Snow Princess' leaves yesterday for not being pregnant anymore. Today I feel like I have to take away one more for absolutely no reason at all other than I feel like it. Ha!!! :-)))