Date: 2005-07-10
From: Shelter, Allentown Hiking Club Shelter

To: Hostel, Palmerton PA Jail
Miles today: 17.7

Oblivious has said several times on the trail that later in life he will win all of the "if you think that's bad, my parents did..." arguments. Now he will be able to say, "The 1st night I ever spent in jail was with my parents and a bunch of smelly strangers." That will of course be followed by "I was 10 yrs old the 1st time my parents made me hitch hike." And by "My family was so hungry when I was little that my Mom picked up stranger's food off of the ground for us to eat." Yes the trail is the experience of a lifetime for my son. He certainly can't learn things like these in public school.      Palmerton has a really nice thing going for the hikers. They converted their old basement jail to a free Hostel. There are bunks (with pads!) and possibly the best shower on the trail. They even give us goody bags from the local Girl Scout troop. The goody bags have a pre-stamped Palmerton postcard, a toothbrush with on the trail at Palmerton on the handle, toothpaste, TOILET PAPER, a 15 min calling card, a Band-Aid, a Tylenol, and a granola bar. A lot of thought went into these goody bags.    Today was another day of Pennsylvania rocks. There weren't solid miles of them today and we didn't have the extra fun of rain. So to make up for that the trail sent us up and over rocky cliff like ridges. You know the kind that you will break something important or will die if you slip and fall on. The register at the last shelter of the day asked the question "Why are there so many rocks in Pennsylvania?" The answer "It only takes one sadistic trail maintainer with a paint brush". I think that no trees gave their lives so that we could hike today. I know that because trees don't grow in boulder fields.   It was a long hot DRY day. We had no water stops for 16.8 miles. We had a water source at 4 miles. We didn't get water there because we hadn't drank any. We planned to get water at the Bake Oven Knob Shelter spring. A little before we got there we met a day hiker guy who had been lost for 2+ hours. We showed him the white blazes to follow to get back to the parking area. We also let him drink half a liter of our water. He really needed it and we would be at the Bake Oven Shelter shortly. When we got there - there was no water. We finished the next 6.8 miles with only 1 liter of water to share between all 3 of us. Not fun. We were lucky and found ripe blueberries, which we ate for their moisture, content.    Wingnut used a particularly odd landmark today. He said at such and such mileage the AT would be 800 feet above the tunnel that I-81 ran through. Well since I left my Superman x-ray vision tunnel finding glasses at home, I was not able to figure out when we were above the tunnel. Although somewhat interesting trivia, it was completely useless as a landmark. Especially when you are trying to push through those 6.8 miles for water.   When we were coming down the hill at the end of the day, we had a nice surprise. Gordon was there. Gordon and Sue had dropped us off for our canoe aqua blaze and had gone on to support a south bounder section hiker friend of theirs. That support had been expected to last for 1 month. Their friend had to leave the trail early. So they came in search of us. They were able to track us down by our journal entries. I don't know how long we will journey together but we were all really glad to see them. Oblivious was really glad to see Sue.   Take care and we will see you on the trail.