Date: 2021-06-07
From: Port Clinton Pavilion 

To: Port Clinton Pavilion & Hamburg
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

We decided to do a zero today even though Port Clinton was not really my idea of a town worth zeroing in. For one, we weren¢t in a hotel laying on the bed arguing over the remote. We got up at our normal time and wandered over to meet Chaser¢s husband, Silver Goat. Several of the Lost Boys were up too, C4 and Fundip. We chatted about trail experiences and mileage. Then Q came over to say goodbye. We wished him well. It called for the possibility of rain that afternoon and we wanted to waterproof the canopy, so we dragged everything under the covered pavilion so it wouldn¢t get wet if it rained while we were gone. After Chaser put Silver Goat back on the trail, she drove Waymaker and us into Hamburg. We asked to be dropped at the Starbucks and Waymaker went on to the Walmart. We thanked Chaser profusely and said we hoped to see her again. David ordered his Starbucks coffee and I ordered my fru-fru drink (as David likes to call it) of a mocha frappachino with light ice and peppermint syrup. I also plugged our phones and power bank into charge. We thoroughly enjoyed our drinks!We then walked over to Walmart for resupply, the bane of hiking. We had emptied our packs and brought them with us so we didn¢t have to carry a bunch of plastic bags. As is often the case, it seemed like we bought more than we needed. We sat on a bench out front and took everything out of its boxes or plastic wrap to reduce the weight as much as possible. We hit the Dollar Store after that because we needed travel toothbrushes and Walmart didn¢t have any. We were hungry for lunch so we went to McDonald¢s. The dining area was closed for a graduation party. We walked over to Burger King. Their dining area was just closed period. We are walking all this time and the temperature was in the 90¢s and the sweat was dripping off us. The heat was suffocating and walking around on pavement was miserable. The humidity must have been 99%. You could feel the heat coming off the pavement. I called Wendy¢s to verify they had indoor dining (We really just wanted a place to get out of the heat.) We walked over there and ate. They gave us a free frosty for being thru-hikers. We got a text from Whipperpoorwill and gang that they were at Cabela¢s so we went over there. Cabela¢s offered a 5pm shuttle back to the pavilion that we all wanted to catch. The gang headed out to the trail and we pulled the tent out of the covered pavilion to waterproof the canopy with the spray we got at Walmart. David walked down to house #75 to get water while I organized the food we had just purchased. Organizing meant:Put an Instant Breakfast in a snack bag, measure out powdered milk and add to bag and shake well to mixSeparate can of cashews into 2 oz bagsMeasure out cereal into quart bags, measure out powdered milk and add to bag and mix wellProtein bars and candy bars into snack bagPropel drink packets into their bag in snack bagDinner meals and lunch meals into appropriate waterproof bagsThe canopy dried pretty quickly in the sun and we moved it under the trees for the night because of the dew in the mornings.We were eating dinner at the picnic table (We splurged on beef stew from Walmart.) and Skittles came over and offered us a blackberry cobbler that he had picked up at the store. We took a piece to share and then he took the rest over to the hikers in the covered pavilion. Skittles was taking a zero tomorrow. He said when he hit town he always bought a cheesecake at Walmart and ate the whole thing and then went for a steak dinner. He couldn¢t wait for the next day and his steak dinner. We went to bed after dinner for our early hike out the next morning. Zero day.