Date: 2016-06-14
From: The Doyle Hotel - Duncannon, PA

To: The Doyle Hotel - Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 0.0

I'm stuck in the town vortex!!! Ahhhh!!!So... This morning Andrew, Magma and I went across the street for breakfast where we were joined briefly by Hornet. This was the first time I've ever seen scrapple on a menu, and that holds strong camping memories for me, so I had to get it! It wasn't as good as I remember it cooked in a pie iron over a fire in Curtis Creek Campground in Pisgah National Forest, but it was decent.After breakfast I headed up to my room, packed up and checked out. Magma had been feeling pretty dizzy and had a weird knot on the back of her neck, so Otey shuttled her and Andrew into Harrisburg to visit the ER. Meanwhile, I decided to stick around for a bit until the hotel opened so I could get my passport stamped. The AT passport has been around for a couple of years, and you are able to collect stamps from various places and people along the trail. The Doyle is an iconic part of the trail culture, so this had to be done. While I was waiting, I went down the road for a haircut, but ended up having to make an appointment for about an hour out. I hung out with Horent for a while, got my stamp, then got my haircut. At that point, Hornet and I were going back and forth about whether to hit the trail or stay another night. I got a quick bite to eat, and the next thing I knew it was 1pm. I was still waiting to hear back from Magma, so I went to Vicky and demanded the best room in the hotel! And it worked! I got the corner turret room with three windows and a great view of the street and the mountains. I tossed my pack in the room and Hornet and I went for a little field trip.We went down the street a couple of blocks to visit Trail Angel Mary. He wanted to talk to her about slack packing, and I just wanted to meet her and get her to stamp my passport. A few other hikers were there helping her build bunks. While we were chatting with her three hikers came through to say hey and find out about a shuttle to the grocery store. These kids had been there all of three minutes and she gave them the keys to her van to go to the store. I went along for the ride.When we got back I met up with Hornet again before going to chill in my room for a while. Eventually he and I went down the road to a pizza/sub joint for dinner, we had both had enough of the Doyle's pub fare, as awesome as it is. Eventually we heard from Magma. Otey and I had both been trying to get in touch with them because he had been waiting for about seven hours with no word. Finally he had to leave. She got out not long after he left, and he went back to pick them up. But, on their way back to the Doyle the bus over heated and they were stuck on the side of the freeway with the state troopers showing up! He managed to pull enough water from his toilet system to cool the engine and they made it back to the hotel.Unfortunately Magma is having to get off the trail. Her sister will be in from Rochester tomorrow to pick them up. I'm pretty bummed for them. They had several more weeks planned. I hung out with Indian for a while before heading up to bed. He came through a few months ago when he pulled his hamstring coming down off the last ridgeline. He had planned to recover for a couple of days and wait for a package to come one. Things got screwed up and it took his package two and a half weeks to get here, but in that time he made himself useful to Pat and Vicki, and he has been here helping them out ever since.   After socializing a bit I headed upstairs, took a shower, and got ready to settle in for the night. I had counted thirteen spiders in my room. Now, if you know me you probably know that spiders kinda give me the creeps, but I don't like to kill them. So I decided to just ignore them. That is, until a huge one decided to drop down almost on my head while I was taking a selfie to show off my new haircut!! AHHHH!!!! Still not wanting to kill it, but not wanting it to end up in bed with me either, I used my trekking pole to swipe at the line of web it was dangling from so I could put it out in the hallway. I don't know what was going on with this thing's web, but somehow it ended up coming right for me!!! I barely escaped and it scurried back up to the fan. Now I'm a little unsettled, but I don't know what to do about it, so I escaped back out to the porch hoping the problem would go away if I ignored it.Back outside with Indian we talked a while, then he decided to take me down to the river to see the best view in Duncannon. It was beautiful. You could see the ridge I came in on, and the ridge I would leave on, and the stars were gorgeous. When we got back to the hotel I had resolved myself to initiating the Great Spide Massacre of 2016. I was sad about it, but it had to be done. However, when I got here, I found that the most offending soider had settled itself on the ceiling and seemed pretty content to be there. So I have decided that they will be spared for the time being. Hopefully I will not have any spider stories to relay tomorrow...