Date: 2006-07-03
From: Home

To: Home
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

      Ahhhh, the comforts of home. No need to filter the water, showers whenever you like, a mattress to sleep on, and any kind of food that you can cook up. Quite nice.         We¢ve hiked all the way home from Georgia. It¢s hard to believe that we are already here. After booking it to lower the average number of miles that we need to hike per day to finish before Baxter State Park closes, we can relax knowing that we only need to hike about 11 miles per day to finish in time. That¢s beautiful. We¢ve been doing between 20 to 28 miles per day for the last month, but we still had plenty of time to stop at the cool spots along the way.        We finally caught up to Ork & Bean at the Doyle Hotel in Duncannon, PA. We hadn¢t seen those guys since the infamous Smokies. We hiked into Duncannon around 9:40 at night; the yellow street lights revealing black, plastic pipes draining the basements of almost every house along main street. We walked up to the Doyle Hotel not knowing what to expect. Live music was blaring from inside the first floor bar/restaurant and the curtained windows offered no hint to what the atmosphere was like. We dropped our backpacks and decided that it would be best if only Dad went in to inquire about a room. When he opened the door he got such a welcome as I have never heard before. Everyone inside erupted with a roar of greeting. It was amazing.        It was great being able to catch up with Fiddlehead and Ork & Bean. The Doyle was the kind of place that was probably a very fancy hotel in its day: gigantic wooden staircase up the middle of the building, four floors, a second story wraparound porch, bay windows up the one corner of the building facing the street topped with a pointed turrent, and the bar area had a gilded ceiling. The next day, June 31, a bunch of thru-hikers ate lunch at the Doyle and practiclly all of them ordered some cheese fries. We ordered a large and when the waitress brought it out we couldn¢t believe our eyes. A serving platter, the kind that you might see a turkey atop during Thanksgiving, was piled high with the best cheese fries that we had every eaten. Between that and our burgers it was almost too much. (The food did catch up to us later on in the day when we had to stop and take a nap).        At the end of town, the part of the trail that went under the railroad bridge was flooded so Pat and Vicki, the nice folks who run the Doyle, shuttled all of the thru-hikers around to the other side. There was supposedly a $300 fine if someone tried to walk through the water and Vicki said that in the middle the water was as high as someone¢s chest. Whew. We crossed the Susquehanna on the highway bridge. The river was a fast-moving muddy mass that had far outgrown its banks. Looking down at the water behind the bridge¢s pylons it was as if we were on a boat from the waves and swirls that were created.        That evening, on the way to Peter¢s Mtn. Shelter, we came across E-Rock and Fiddlehead sitting on Tabletop rock. They called out for us to join them. We did, and then Pepperoni and Jambalaya showed up. And soon after that, AbleJack walked up. We had a veritable party sitting up there enjoying the view and the company.        Peter¢s Mtn. Shelter was a palace: two stories, 20+ people could fit inside, an overhang to cover the picnic table. A couple feet nearby stood one of the shelters that Earl Schaeffer built. The only problem was the 300 some steps that led steeply down a hill to the water source.         The next day¢s hike brought us into familiar territory. We finally found a cooler that had something in it other than crushed soda cans and trash. An ice cold soda by the trail side. We hiked with Ork & Bean for awhile and we met the Australian sisters Veggimite on Toast, Waltzing Matilda, and Bluey as well as Hawkeye, KnockKnock, and Mudflap & Daisy as they were hiking southbound. A hop, skip and a jump later we were at the roadcrossing where we were going to be picked up for our little respite at home.        It feels great to be home, but it won¢t be long before we¢ll be itching to get back out on the AT. Only 1,000 more miles to go! We¢re starting to feel like we know a thing or two about this hiking business.