Date: 2010-06-15
From: Falls Creek Bridge

To: Powerline 1077.2
Miles today: 22.7

The only thing about today¢s date that I¢m sure of is that it¢s June! I¢m so confused about the date. I broke camp while getting annihilated by mosquitoes! Dad always gets a laugh out of things like this morning. I was hoping in place, swatting, hitting myself in the face, and running around like someone was shooting at my feet like in a western movie. Dance boy, DANCE! Moved to a windy open road in the sunlight and made breakfast. Still debating about buying a new camera. My old camera frame trigger thingy is broken. I have to use a needle inserted into the housing of the trigger to take a photo. Really don¢t want to give those Wal-mart devils another penny of mine. Flipped a coin like I always do in a moral dilemma. It feel on tails; no new camera! Still debating a run into Waynesboro. My memory card is full and I don¢t want to delete anything until I have several back up CD¢s. Flipped a coin again at PA16, twice it told me to keep walking. Yes, I flipped twice. I really wanted town food for some reason.Lonely hiking today, haven¢t seen a thru-hiker all day. Deer Lich Shelter and Antietam Shelter are dual structures, one for snoring and non-snoring! Wished they had these in the Smokey¢s! Met Space Bag at Tumbling Run shelter. Nice kid with a huge AT tattoo. He hasn¢t thru-hiked, but he has that huge ink on his arm. I¢m definitely waiting to finish before getting mine. Wouldn¢t want to be reminded of failure if I didn¢t make it. He has a copy of the first AT guidebook ever made. The guidebook is called, ¢The Philosopher¢ from 1988. Space Bag is flipping up from Harpers to Main and then GA to Harpers.I drew in the register while I waited out an approaching storm. Not raining hard, just enough to keep things nice and cool. So thankful for this weather so unlike 2 days ago. Overcast and 70 degrees! View from Chimney Rocks pretty nice. First virgin forest I¢ve seen in ages, no development other than a powerline. All green canopy! Fun climbing up there on those monstrous slippery rocks. Shoes still doing their thing! Love these tanks. My feet are hard and tough so when you put them inside something hard and tough things feel pretty comfortable. Even walking over rocks isn¢t that bad.Lots of Pines growing in Southern PA. The forest is open here so you can see far off into the distance of the forest on either side of you. The ferns along the floor of the forest go on for as far as you can see. The trail designers here are heartless. There¢s a large 2 mile long ridge-line running parallel to the AT. They would run you up the ridge and right back down for no reason at all. Just to make it harder. No views up there. Nothing but bigger rocks to be found. Felt a little frustrated after the second time, but its fun climbing on those things. Thought of those kids playing at the Penn-Mar Park yesterday. They were whistling hymnal gospel songs instead of normal kid songs.I guess if it wasn¢t so slippery I wouldn¢t care about all these pointless up and downs (PUD¢s). Rain got harder and I ducked down into Rocky Mtn. Shelter. Water is so far away that I don¢t feel like trying to find it. I could hear the mice in the walls and it¢s broad daylight. The section hiker who told me 2 miles back that the shelter was 34 miles away, asked if the water was 0.1 miles from the shelter. No, I didn¢t mislead him like he misled me! I told him that it was 0.5miles straight down according to the register.US30 was BUSY! An ignorant truck driver swerved over the line towards me. Hope he didn¢t mean to do that. Caledonia State Park was alright. Huge, towering hemlocks lined the black, stagnant creek/river leading into the park entrance. Had to get water by slurping it from the fountain and spitting it into my water jug. No water pressure, just a trickle from the nozzle. Nice couple there doing trail magic. Banana, apple, molasses cookies, brownies, coke and a Milky Way! They hiked last year. They¢re in town looking for a cabin to purchase. Wish I could have been more friendly, but I was exhausted, hungry and the mosquitoes were horrible there.Trail up to Quarry Gap shelter was STEEP! Wet before I knew it. Felt better with food in my gut. Thanks trail angels! Ha, a guy at the last park called himself a ¢Trail Angel¢ but he wanted to charge me for a ride to Waynesboro. ¢Angels¢ don¢t charge for their services bud! No thanks, Mr. Saint, I don¢t need your kind of help.Made dinner Quarry Shelter and left although it was such an eye catching shelter. There were potted flowers and yellow duck decorations. Saw my first hiker bear box! Trail leaving that shelter was steep also. The trail side was covered in wilting mountain laurel. Would have been pretty in May. Camping just past the powerlines. Read Lish¢s letters and remembered all the places I¢d first opened them. Came so far! Halfway tomorrow! It¢s really amazing how many times I¢ve read her letters. My favorite reading material. They always make me feel better at the end of a long day. We¢ve came a long way together and we¢re just getting started. I¢m caught up in a Whippoorwill symphony. Time for ear plugzzzzzzzzz¢¦.