Date: 2008-05-13
From: Home

To: Boiling Springs PA
Miles today: 0.0

Okie dokie folks, back in Boiling Springs, after a day filled with driving. We woke up this morning and were on the road by 11:00 a.m. with a 4 hr drive ahead of us. It was weird though, when I woke up, I knew this would be the last morning I woke up in my bed, in my home, with Henry laying next to me, with Hank doing happy paws on the bed in order to let us know he was hungry. All of this would not be my reality again until I have summited Mt. Katahdin and hiked all the way to Maine (assuming all goes smoothly that is). It was a bit surreal actually, exciting and scary at the same time.So I had a talk with the boys and told them to behave, we put our packs in the car and we were off.It was a quick drive actually, and by 3:15 p.m., we were pulling into the Blue Mountain Outfitter in Marysville, PA, which is 9 miles from Duncannon, PA. So these people were super super nice ad layed back. They specialize more in canoe and kayaks, but this place was cool to look around in, it used to be a train station, now converted to an outfitter.So we followed Mark and his friend 20 miles away and parked our car @ PA 325 trailhead @ Clark's Gap. I asked about vandalism, and Mark said they've never heard of any instances, and it felt like a good place. We loaded our packs into Mark's van (in the process Karen racked her shin on the huge hitch sticking out of the bumper..she'll have a great bruise later for sure), and we hopped in for the ride to Boiling Springs.If anyone is interested, they charge $1.00/mile and it was an 80 mile round trip for them, so it worked out quite nicely. The outfitter in Duncannon told me they do not offer shuttles at all, but you can call The Doyle Hotel there, and they can find someone.They dropped us off @ the Garmanhaus B&B, which is 1 of 2 places in town. We met the owner and he showed us to our room. He does have a policy that you leave your packs outside due to the smell most hikers have by now. I prefer not to do that, but hey, you go with it you know?So we are right across the street from the "boiling" springs, which is a beautiful almost tiny shallow lake that is fed constantly by water that bubbles up in places, hence the name boiling. It's cold water though. We went for a walk, and today was just gorgeous. There were baby ducks and we even saw a muskrat swimming into its shelter. Then we walked over to the Mid-Atlantic headquarters for the ATC and talked to the director, Karen for a bit. She was very nice and told us about some legislation they're working towards in trying to get the entire AT protected as a national historic park. After that, we decided to get some dinner, so we walked over to the Boiling Springs Tavern. This is the nicest place in town actually, and they are a bit pricier than other places, but the food was excellent. We had a wonderful and relaxing meal, and finally about 8:30 p.m. we walked back to the B&B.The owner, a very sweet (70 something) man, told us there were 2 other hikers, both guys, so he wanted to show us ladies how to lock our room door. Not because he thought badly of the guys, but more out of old-fashioned courtesy. He has this huge map of 1\2 of the U.S, and he asks you to sign your trailname, real name and year on the town you're from. It was pretty cool to see this thing almost totally without a blank space!   So we're all tucked in, trying to let dinner settle, and will be hiking north in the morning! As Karen said, "This is it." This is my final sort of "start." It's nothing but total focus on hiking now. I might hook up with Rebecca (my advisor and friend)and Gary in NH if we can swing it, but other than that, it's all about digging in and hiking. I'm excited, and as usual, nervous all over again (weird huh?). I laughed because I realized I've yet to have a "real" town stop/resupply because I've been with friends or had a car. Spoiled I've been for sure.So nighty night, the morning will be here soon enough. Oh, and now, I'll be referring to Karen as Incessant, seeing as how she's a hiker at least for now. She's laying here entertaining herself with high quality reading material from Good Housekeeping magazine. I couldn't guess who the famous people were from their senior pictures, but that's why she's got the Ph.D. right? ~Certain