Date: 2016-05-13
From: Leroy Smith shelter 

To: campsite 
Miles today: 26.0
Weather: broken clouds

Some days you wake up because the people are snorring or birds are singing. Today wasn't one of those days. Today everybody got woken up by a happy me and as always they really enjoyed getting up especially when it is 5:30. We started hiking an hour later and the first thing to do was reach Wind Gap to do laundry and send away the really nice boots Eli found (they carried that extra weight for 2 days). The three of them also went to Dunkin Donuts while I was doing the laundry so in the end a really nice morning. But it got even better. It got kinda hard to catch rides since we left the southern states so we normally had to hike the extra miles. This morning though we suprisingly got a ride after standing at the street for 5 seconds. We basically did laundry we ate donuts and caught a ride. Considering all that you might think hey there isn't much that could make this day even better but three little words can summarize the best thing that was about to happen. Good bye Pennsylvania. After finishing a state we used to make a final statement for the state that tries to summarize all of the experiences we had. Normally we always finished on a positive note but this time that was impossible. The first 150 miles were perfect for making miles which we appreciated. The terrain was flat with only a few uphills and as long as the rain didn't force us too aquablaze the trail was nice except for the fact that there was nothing to see. We were already making jokes that all the people who told us how Rocky it would be were wrong until we hit Port Clinton. After Port Clinton the funny part was gone. It was the same as before besides the fact that it got rocky and we had to walk with our heads down for 5 days straight which got incredible annoying on the last 2. So thank you Pennsylvania i won't miss you and i will try to never hike in you again.With the knowledge that we would leave the state after we passed through Delaware Water Gap we hiked the last 15 miles that were like the rest of the state. Only the last 2 miles were really nice and we were wondering if we were in Georgia again with all the rothadentron and the nice rock free trail. Around 4 we arrived in Delaware Water Gap and got new socks for Eli aand me. Zac also bought new tips for his trekking pole. That marked the moment were the real fun started. First of all we weren't able to take off the old tips and when we finally got them off we still needed the baskets but one of them was stuck one the old tip. To complete that situation it started to rain and another hiker named Jack Sparrow was waiting on us in a pizza place. So we decided to solve the problem later on and went to the pizza place to eat town food for the second time on that day (Eli often has a good mood but in that moment it was the heaven on earth for him).We finished the pizza around 5:30. Remember that time because that's the perfect example how effective we are the we're leaving towns.At 5:30 two of us wanted to use the bathroom so we could have left around 6. While they were doing their business zac tried to get of the basket by using his knife. Around 5:50 i also realized that a visit of the bathroom would be good. The moment i returned zac yelled that he cut his finger and he ran to the bathroom with eli and jack following him. It was a deep cut which was bleeding quite a bit. Nobody had a clue what to do so jack got the two tiniest bandaids i've ever seen and started to talk about some summer camp story while eli asked me what to do. I didn't know either because the only things I thought off would help him if the whole arm would have been cut off. After one minute off total chaos i reminded myself that it's basically like every normal cut so we waited until the bleeding stopped desinfected the wound and used all the medical stuff which I brought over from Germany that I had never expected to be off any use.When we finally left the city it was 7 and it started to get dark. We crossed the Delaware and on the other side there was a privy that I decided to use while they were going the last 4 miles to the campsite. When I got there Eli zac and seam were all hyped up because while I was gone they saw a raccoon playing in the creek and they finally saw a bear crossing the trail. In total definitely one of the nicer days on the trail. I hope you didn't fall asleep while reading this and again thanks for the support.das machine