Date: 2009-06-22
From: 501 Shelter, PA

To: Phillips Canyon Spring, PA
Miles today: 19.7

Cell goodOG notesLast night went very very well for us. Our friends Dean, Brenda, Wanda, Jeff, and Tim surprised us by meeting us on the trail. We drove to town and had dinner at the local pizza place, actually it looked like the only place open in the small town of Pine Grove, PA. We had a great time in town talking and enjoying the time we had with them.When we returned to the shelter the other hikers were all bummed out. They had pizza delivered to the shelter and the caretaker proceeded to give them grief over it. He has posted a sign that says pizza cannot be delivered there as it is against Park Rules to do business there. He considers the delivery of pizza as doing business. The rule is being used by him because there is something about the pizza he doesn't like. The only thing I can think of is the boxes are a lot of trash. Now speaking of trash, he removed the trash cans from the shelter and told the people with pizza they had to pack out their boxes and soda bottles, and they could not burn the boxes in the fire. There may have been a problem with some past hikers and their trash, but he is perpetuating the problem with every hiker that passes through there. One other thing. We all look forward to reading shelter registers to see who is ahead of us and if they have left us any messages. When we arrived at the 501 Shelter the book was blank. The caretaker had ripped out all the previous pages. I suspect someone had left an unflattering remark about him in it so it was destroyed. This guy should not be in the position he is in if he cannot get along with people!   C6 notesHappy 40th birthday today to our son-in-law, Chris!!! We're glad we're in a place where we could call and wish you a happy birthday in person!975.1 miles to go! Less than 1,000 and counting down. Whoo hoo! Today's weather was good. Cloudy and comfortably cool for most of the day, and then the sun came out. Our weather stats today are now 50 sunny days and 53 crappy weather days. Argh. We sure would like more nice days. Oh well.We're camping between shelters tonight. We thought the weather looked fairly decent for a couple days this week, so we decided to take our chances and push a few miles beyond a shelter tonight. We chose to camp near a spring that's identified to be "seasonal." That means there could be no water if this was a dry season. Not a problem this year! We'll probably be the only people camped here tonight. That's a first for me...to be somewhere where there is no one but us. Camping here puts us 4 miles from the town where our next box of food is, so we'll get our box in the morning and enjoy either a late breakfast or early lunch and move on.We saw another rattle snake today. The guys who were just ahead of us on the trail (Mr. Buffalo Man, Goof, and The Hulk) saw it and brought it to our attention. This snake didn't rattle, it just moved into the brush. I didn't realize there are different types of rattle snakes. The first two we saw were primarily brown. This one was primarily black.   Later today I startled, and was startled by, a black snake. Black snakes aren't dangerous, but we each jumped and the snake slithered away real fast. I didn't realize how fast they can move.When we got to our destination this evening and headed down to the spring for water, we were surprised how steep the path was to the spring. Quite a challenge to get down and back up, but it was an excellent water source since we've had so much rain.We hiked in a LOT of mud today, and there was a long section of the trail that was mostly under water. We're tired of so much mud and water. Apparently the trail has been under water in that section (probably close to 2 miles long) for so long that a new path parallel to the AT has been beaten down and is becoming muddy in places, too.It's nearing hiker midnight (dark), so I'm off to bed now. Good night.Old Goat & Check Six