Date: 2008-05-16
From: Stealth site .5 mi north of PA-850, PA

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 8.5
Weather: light rain

Rain rain rain, the name of last nite and today's game. It poured all nite and cooled off into the mid 50's.Incessant and I discussed the options if it was raining when we woke. We had 1 of 3 plans. If the rain stopped soon, we'd pack up and hike to the first shelter past Duncannon. If the rain continued, we could zero and stay dry. If it stopped mid-day, we'd hike into Duncannon and stay there. There was one thing we didn't expect. Incessant woke up with a migraine, and it was still pouring, so we decided to go back to sleep so she could get rid of the headache, and hopefully the rain would subside. In the meantime, I threw on my raingear and got our food down, and while I was out there, I adjusted our tarps out so we could both have more of a view and a larger area to move around under the cover. While I'm doing this, I hear Incessant coughing, and look over, she's sitting in her hammock, leaning out of the slit and puking!! Oh No!! I felt so badly for her. I went over and just rubbed her back until the "episode" was over. Man, that's got to be the worst, not even I've dealt with that bodily function out here. So, she got all tucked in, I went back to sleep, and it just kept raining and raining, and the temps were dropping closer to 50. She's pretty sure the headache was spurred on by dehydration and the high-sodium content in all of the hiking food, which she's not used to eating all of that crappy stuff.So we both fell asleep, and at 9:45 a.m., Incessant wakes me up with a big smile on her face saying she feels 110% better now, and so we decided to hike into Duncannon. We figured we could stay in town or if the sun ever came out, there was a campground 1 mile past town.So we started packing up in the cold rain. This was Incessant's first time doing this so she was hilarious. I was almost totally packed and I hear her say, "Oh, new hiker mistake new hiker mistake! I just realized I left my drysack inside of my hamock, which is already skinned." She'd been going through her entire pack trying to find it and it was the last place it could have been. I just started laughing at her as she unskinned it and retrieved the dry sack. She had gear all over the place, so she's trying to get her routine down (ahhh..I remember those days!)We got all packed except her tarp, and we decided to eat lunch before we left, so we did and 2 hikers came by, Little Debbie (a guy that was like 6ft 5") and his wife from Chapel Hill, NC. Really nice people.It became obvious today was not going to be Incessant's day, she squatted in her Dri-Duck rainpants (almost exactly like frogg toggs--paperish material) and riiiiip! The seam right along the crotch rips wide open! LOL We both died laughing, and I told her the same exact thing happened to me last year with my frogg togg pants, which is why I now have "real" rainpants. It was all good though, the rest of the pants were still intact. So, dri-duck or frogg togg jackets are fine, but you need something more substantial for pants.We were finally off @ 11:53 a.m. with a short climb ahead, and then down to a creek (great place to stealth camp here) before starting the steep 1 mile climb up Cove Mt.We met a day hiker with his little dog, Scrappy, who was lovin being in the rain.The rocks were very slippery from the rain, and after we got to the top, it was a ridge walk for 5 miles. The trail was everything, dirt, semi-rocky, ALL rock, muddy, and all wet. 2 positive things about hiking in the rain are that the wet dirt becomes spongy and softer to pound your feet on, and the colors...wow, the colors of green leaves against the dark brown trees, it is so vibrant and we both agreed it could not be duplicated by humans. So beautiful. As we hiked, we both realized we were STILL both song bombed by the theme song from Wonder Woman, and then it turned to "Tonight" from West Side Story. It drives you crazy sometimes to get the same song stuck.We kept moving, because we'd get cold otherwise, and we came to a double blue-blaze, and there was no sign, but I assumed it went to Cove Mt. Shelter, which meant we only had 4 more miles to go. We were happy about that. We didn't hike down the blue blaze though, it was WAY downhill, so we stopped for a few minutes and ate a snack.Then, at 4:00, the sign for the shelter showed up...DAMN! I hate it when that happens, on a cold rainy miserable day like today, it's hard mentally when you think you're further. At this point, I had to stop and put on more layers. I just couldn't stay warm. So now we had 4 more miles..and it was obvious, we were headed for a motel room. It was now in the 40's with the windchill (and it was windy!), rain was on and off, but always dripping, we couldn't take breaks like we wanted because we'd get cold. The toughest kind of hiking day there is in my book.On a day like today, I felt the need to express my strong opinions about never getting a good view. So I'm yelling back @ Incessant (it was hard to hear because of rain and wind) and I'm using some choice colorful expletives, and it NEVER fails, about the time I'm yelling out some "choice" word, other hikers appear out of nowhere. I'm almost always joking, but they don't know it. Whoops..so it happened again.We ran into 4 hikers headed to Boiling Springs over the weekend. They had just climbed up Cove Mt., from Duncannon, and this one guy was in a short sleeved shirt! Ceerraazzy!! We knew we were close to the 1.5 mile downhill, which they told us was pretty tough.The landmark before going down was Hawk Rock, which should have had a view, but in my hiking tradition, there was no view, just thick misty fog. (I'm waiting @ Katahdin as long as I have to for a view!!). It was confusing where the trail went from Hawk Rock, and we started going back up, which we knew couldn't be right, so we stopped and realized that we were on the AT but not going the right direction, and we had accidentally taken another tiny path to Hawk Rock that hikers had worn into the forest floor. Doh!! We turned around and finally saw the hiding blaze leading down, so we went on. Man were they right about the descent. Parts were very steep, with that gravely shale rock that you can slide on, and then there were parts of just solid rock eveywhere (I'm assuming THIS is what northern PA will be like). We were both getting pretty tired (gotta hand it to Incessant again, she just stayed the course ad I know she had to be hurting more than me..I do have over 1100 miles on my feet and legs afterall, but she stayed positive and dealt with the adverse conditions like a pro!).Down down and slowly down we went. We could hear town sounds getting closer, which is always motivating. We decided we'd try out the Stardust Motel once we got into town, as opposed to The Doyle. Mainly because we kept running in to hiker after hiker (as well as locals) who would say "It's a tradition to stay there, they've got cheap beer and food, but my room had a tarp over the window" and stuff like this. At this point, we both just wanted a quiet, clean, climate-controlled place to stay, and figured we could check out the Doyle when we came back to town in a few days after getting to the car.So we finally emerged from the woods and onto a road. Wow..what a feelig to know warmth and dryness were in the near future. We got to the bridge that crossed over Sherman's Creek and I called the Stardust Motel. George agreed to pick us up @ the Gulf Station that we could see, but he did tell us they did not have laundry soap @ the motel, so once we got to the Gulf Station, I went in and bought a small bottle of Tide and a Dr. Pepper for me and Diet Coke for Incessant. Within 10 minutes, George was there in his old Ford pickup, we threw our packs in the back and crawled in. It felt good to sit. George is a simple man, but very sweet. The Stardust Motel is about 4 miles away, there's a little restaurat across the street that serves B-L-D, and a convenience store less than a mile away.You never know what to expect with trail motels, but we feel like we scored on this one. Room #16, non-smoking (hard to find in some places), mini-fridge, microwave, newly remodeled bathroom (with the exact tub we have in our bathroom at home ironically!), and pretty spacious for plenty of room for exploding our soaked and gross gear. and..it's very quiet and clean! With the hiker discount, it's $57.00 a nite for us both, so I highly recommend this place.George gave us extra towels and shampoo and the # for the pizza place that delivers. He took care of s, andthe shuttle to\from town is free (but I'll tip him for sure wen he drops us off again).So we got all checked in, got to the room and proceeded to hang wet and dirty gear everywhere, made a huge pile of wet and stinky clothes for laundry, and then Incessant called to order pizza. It was by far the most hilarious phone call I've heard. She was exhausted, and just could NOT get the order right. It didn't help that I was not clear about what I wanted, so she had to change and reorder like 4 times during the same phone conversatio with this teenage kid, and I was just dying laughing by this point. She finally hung up, and rolled her eyes and we just laughed and laughed. We figured we'd be lucky if they got 1\2 of it right.She hopped into the shower, I threw in the laundry and then took a hot hot shower. Gosh, it felt so good, but Incessant found yet another tick on me...way up by my shoulder on my back! How are they getting in these weird places?Just as I finished my shower, the pizza kid showed up with our pizza, chicken tenders and salad! mmmmmmWe devoured our food (it was now close to 10:00 p.m.) and watched the new American Gladiators. I got the laundry and Incessant only washed her rainpants (not supposed to dry them), and the wash ended up making crotchless rainpants! I think I'll market this idea in adult stores, we just laughed and plan to perform some duct tape triage on them tomorrow.We're playing tomorrow by ear too. Still a chance the rain will be around, and we've decided we don't want to get all dried out just to go right back into it again, so we'll see.We've got a card game to finish anyways. I'm so exhausted right now I can't keep my eyes open.Warm, dry, clean, full....it gets no better than this.~Certain