Date: 2008-05-11
From: Alec Kennedy Shelter PA 

To: Boiling Springs PA
Miles today: 3.9

Day 84 ¢ Sunday May 11 ¢ Boiling Springs PA ¢ Miles Today: 3.9 Total Miles: 1109.7The morning started a bit earlier than planned - about 5:50. Why? Well, it's time for the next dousing of the gypsy moths, silly! Luckily, this time our tent covered us but with the plane buzzing over every minute in its crisscross path, we had no additional sleep. At least now we know it's not pilots being trained and we understand that we are being sprayed with chemicals that are supposedly not harmful to us. Yeah, right. You should see Brakeman. If you thought he was freakish before, he's even more freakish and weird now. We packed a wet tent once again this morning. However this time it was wet due to the chilly night¢s condensation rather than from rain.It was an uneventful dry hike out to Boiling Springs. Not too much exciting happened in our 3.9 miles, but we did see a lot of round holes in the earth that were probably 10' in wide and 5' deep. We¢re not sure if they are from mining one of the 3 ingredients used to make iron or perhaps they were just natural sinkholes. We got to Boiling Springs about 9:00 and toured the town. We saw the natural spring in town that boils up, thus the name - Boiling Springs. We checked out the pond and the beautiful old Victorian homes and B&B¢s. We checked out a war memorial. The only two eating establishments - The Cafe and The Tavern were closed, but that was OK, we were not in the market for food. The gas station with a little convenience store was open. As we sat on the curb across the street waiting for our Trail Angels, we saw Bare Fodder and the TDM gang head into the gas station. Shortly thereafter they came out with armfuls of food, sat at the outside picnic table and ate their breakfast under a dry sky! I bet they were mighty happy hikers.We were amazed that Bare Fodder at 70 years of age was still hanging with the much younger TDM gang, that hikes not only fast but many miles a day. We hope that he does not get caught up in hiking ¢their hike¢ and injures himself.Mr. & Mrs. Grasshopper arrived early - around 9:30 - 9:45 and found us sitting at the curb. They packed us into the car like a can of sardines! We had our backpacks on our laps, shoes and sticks at our feet and food also on our laps. Actually it was great! Brakeman got to hold the carrot cake and was able to grab the spoon out of his backpack and start eating the cake on the way back to the cabin. Grasshopper had the fruit containers on her lap and she managed to break into the strawberries. It was quite nice to be packed into the car with the food all around us. We had just enough elbowroom to eat! Life was good!We had a bit of an eventful drive to the cabin as we missed our turns. For some reason in Pennsylvania, they don't believe in marking roads with signs - like Rt. 233, so we missed our turn and arrived to Pine Grove Furnace State Park via the back entrance. The back entrance was a little scenic; however, the road kept getting smaller. First we had a small backcountry road with pavement and stripes, and then it switched to a tar and chip road with no stripes. The road was only about a car and a half wide. We were afraid it was going to turn into a dirt road but luckily we arrived into the state park without having to travel on any dirt roads. I think we¢ll head out the front entrance when we head back to the trail, though!We had reservations for the Paymaster's cabin, which is just exactly what it sounds like. It was the Paymaster's cabin back in the mill days. It was a lovely cabin. It looked very historic on the outside but inside it was a totally modern cabin. You would not have known you were in an old historic building. Downstairs we had a kitchen with a full sized refrigerator, microwave, stove, and a table that sat 6 people and a living room with a couch and 2 chairs. Upstairs were 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. One bedroom had a queen bed and the other bedroom had 2 sets of bunks. The bathroom came complete with running water, a flushable toilet and shower with hot water! The hot water wasn't even solar heated. Wow! The cabin also had heating and cooling, so we were living high on the hog! Mrs. Grasshopper brought bed and bath linens as well as kitchen dishes and pans, as those were not provided. Thus another reason why the car was packed so full!The cabin had lots of historic pictures hanging on the walls and Mr. Grasshopper had fun trying to figure out which buildings were which, which ones were still remaining in the park and where in all of the old pictures was the Paymaster's cabin. We toured the park grounds a bit but we spent most of the weekend EATING. Mr. & Mrs. Grasshopper did a tremendous job being our Trail Angels. For deserts, we had everything from carrot cake to chocolate chip cookie dough to double stuffed Oreos to 2 batches of brownies! Dinners were meat loaf with mashed potatoes and pork tenderloin with couscous, along with fruit salad and tossed salad. All the meat entr©es were enough for 6 -8 people although there were only 4 humans here - well, maybe 2 humans and 2 hikers - I'm not sure if hikers are called humans anymore. It was delicious. Lunches were pizza or ham and cheese sandwiches with chips and soda. We had everything one could ever, ever want. If anyone is looking for the motivation to do a thru-hike, I think just the fact you can have Trail Angels treat you so well is the pure motivation. A great big huge thanks to our Tail Angels, Mr. & Mrs. Grasshopper!