Date: 2006-10-18
From: Delaware Water Gap, Pa

To: Hahn's Lookout, Pa
Miles today: 16.6

It's been about a week since my last journal entry and a lot has happened in that week, but I won't go into that. I was in Florida and I made a quick decision at 1pm on Monday, and at 2pm I was driving 1,200 miles back to Delaware Water Gap, Pa. That all brings me to this morning and walking again. I met up with Yolanda and we are going to finish walking together to Duncannon, Pa where she will finish her thru hike this year....that's only another 147 miles, then I guess I'll be on my own again for the rest of my thru hike. It only seems right that I'm there when she finishes her thru hike because I've walked so many miles with her this year and I'm used to all the abuse that she gives me on a daily basis. :-))) Anyway, back to the Trail...we stopped by the church hostel and saw 3 sobo's leaving...Molasses, D Rad and John. They said Superstar and Goatmilk were still in the hostel, so we walked up and talked to them before we started walking south. We found out Dorito had to get off Trail for a foot problem. It had rained all day yesterday, so all 5 of those sobo's took a zero at the hostel. It was 10am before we left and actually started walking again. It sure felt great to be walking on the Trail. The first climb took us up to Mt Minsi. That climb went pretty fast, but it was so warm that we both worked up a sweat on the way to the summit. The rocks were still all wet from the rain, so I was walking carefully. The leaves are still looking really nice with lots of color, but there are more and more laying on the ground and it's getting easier to look up and see the sky instead of the canopy of leaves overhead. It's been so warm that I guess a late hatch of gnats happened because they were buzzing all around my head and dive bombing my eyes. This section between Delaware Water Gap and Wind Gap has lots of rocks...in fact, I remember thinking after my '02 hike that this was the worst of the rocks. It didn't seem like that in other years, but it sure seemed like lots of rocks again today. I was limping by 6 miles into the walk because my right heel was hurting so bad. It hasn't hurt this bad since back in Va when I first got off Trail because of the pain. Hopefully I'll get back to walking the way I was last week. I could feel the heel, but I wasn't limping. We walked by the side trail to Kirkridge Shelter without stopping, then past Fox Gap. We climbed up to Wolf Rocks and walked over those for about .2 miles before getting back on the smaller, pointed rocks that are causing pain on me this year. Normally the Pa rocks don't bother me, but they sure have my attention right now. We walked on and I finally had to sit down to get off my feet for a while. That seemed to help a little. I ate half my sandwich I packed out for dinner, then we walked on. I was walking along looking at the rocks, making sure I stepped on as few pointed ones as I could, when Yolanda said there was a buck watching me. I looked up and only about 15 yards away was an eight point buck just standing there watching us walk by. I got out my camera and got some nice shots of him. I even approached him some to get his full attention and took a few more photos before we walked on. I had hidden some water and a soda at Wind Gap, so when we got there, we ate dinner and filled up our water bottles with enough water to get us into Palmerton tomorrow. When I went to stand up to walk up out of Wind Gap, both of my legs and both of my feet hurt. It took a few minutes of slow walking to get back to a half way normal stride. We crossed the highway and climbed up to Hahn's Lookout. I remembered a spot that we could set up our tent's and we made this area our home for the night. I spent all day looking down at the rocks and only caught one leaf...and that one fell on me and stuck to my shirt, but I grabbed it before it hit the ground. :-))) That puts me at 123 leaves for the season. I also got some good news about my friend, Goosebump The Snow Princess. She had a little Jack Spencer about 5 or 6 weeks early and he was doing fine last I heard. Now, Goosebump The Snow Princess was one of my worthy competitors in this year's leaf catching game and since I was so generous early on and gave her a free leaf for being pregnant, I now have to take that leaf away since she's no longer pregnant....sorry, but I want to be fair to everyone. :-)))