Date: 2008-05-28
From: Pine Grove Furnace

To: Stroudsburg, PA
Miles today: 1090.0

Well well well, it's been an awful long time since we entered a journal. We are at the halfway point at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania. That's right, we have been through two states (West Virginia and Maryland) since we last entered any info on here. And we've done so much! We made it through the Shenendoah National Park, starting in Waynesboro, VA and ending in Front Royal, VA. Waynesboro was probably our favorite town on the trail so far. You couldn't walk somewhere without someone offering you a ride. We felt like celebrities. SNP was beautiful, and had wonderful flat trails, but we spent so much money there! There are little grills and restaurants all along the way, as well as bars, and we ended up slowing way down to enjoy them all. It took a toll on our motivation. Just in time, we met up with a big ol' crew in Front Royal to canoe down the Shenendoah River into Harper's Ferry, WV. We had six boats with Halfbrew & Trinity (a dog), Hearts, Meltdown, Tupperware, Twiggy, Spock, Josh, Snoopy, Chilly Mac and Lt. Dan. The trip included sword fights and rum stealing, a calf rescue, bush-whacking a campsite, trespassing, and commandeering an abandoned motor boat. Needless to say, it was amazing. And it was certainly the flattest 52 miles on the trail!! The Shenendoah River did take it's toll on us though, in the form of an infected toe. Brent started our canoe trip with a tiny tiny little blister on his toe, and after three days in the boat it was a full blown abcess. Luckily there was a clinic outside Harper's Ferry and he got it taken care of, but he had to take two days off the trail. It worked out great though, because we were able to take a train into Washington D.C. and see Amy Zets. She showed us a darn good time and it was hard to say no to her offer to take us to the beach for Memorial Day weekend. (Thank you so much Amy! I hope we get back there on our way home from Maine!) When we got back to Harper's Ferry, we met back up with The Treat, Night Terror and Big 'Un and took an unintentional (aren't they always?) detour into Boonesboro, MD. It all started when we were denied at the Old South Mountain Inn Restaurant (it's right on the trail) for ODOR!! How embarassing is that? So we hitched into the nearest town (Boonesboro) and ate pizza and drank beer and happened to catch their lovely Memorial Day parade. Then a friendly local told us that we were just a little ways away from Sharpsburg, home of the bloodiest battle in Civil War history (Antietam,) so she gave us a ride on over. We ended up skipping all the history stuff though, and went directly to the local watering hole and spent the next 8 hours enjoying $5 pitchers of Yuengling and 50 cent wings. Bunz and I finally got inducted into the Here Here Gang! By the time we knew what time it was...it was dark and we were a looong ways from the trail. A barfly named Peach gave us a ride to a field in the middle of nowhere and dropped us off. We got up the next morning, no idea where we were, and hiked towards what we thought was civilization. Well, it was close enough and we managed to get back to the trail after a couple of hitches. Now we're finally halfway! We both attempted the half-gallon challenge (eating a half-gallon of ice cream at the half-way point) and Bunz succeeded while I failed...miserably. All is well though and we are headed to Boiling Springs tomorrow.