Date: 2003-06-16
From: Darlington Shelter

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 11.4
Weather: overcast clouds

11.4 miles. From Darlington Shelter to Duncannon, PA.   I woke up fairly early. Not as early as some of the other people. Flanders and Chickenfeet got up and took off first and then Draftrunner took off about 15 minutes after them. I left about a quarter to eight after I had gotten my little bit of food made up. I had some grits and got rolling at a quarter till 8. I am running really hard. In about an hour, I passed up Draftrunner and then a few minutes later I passed up Flanders and Chickenfeet and the other guy that they were walking with. I managed to actually hit the road to Duncannon right at 11:00. So, a quarter till 8 till 11:00. 3 hours and 15 minutes for 11.4 miles. Pretty good pace. Anyway, I walked into town and it was a very quaint town. You can tell this area of PA has gone through some hard times just from looking at the neighborhoods. The houses are all basically two story older houses. Some with wood siding on them. My intention was to stay at least one night in Duncannon. I walked up to a newsstand to get some cigars and then over to the Doyle Hotel which is actually very well known on the trail. It has a reputation of sorts. I knew this definitely the place to stay when I walked in the door and the door opens into a bar and the lady behind the bar says¢¦¢Yeah, this is where you register to stay in the room and what do you want to drink?¢ I knew that I was in the right place¢¦..for me. I sat down and had some lunch of crabmeat and shrimp and some other stuff. It was very good. A huge plate of it for like $8.00. I also had a couple of beers. Then, I went to the post office. I was still waiting ¢¦I had to wait for about two hours for the room to be cleaned. So, in the meantime I ran over to the post office. I found out that my food box had shown up but not my bump box. The lady told me it could take from 7-10 days to get from Cascade, MD to Duncannon because it had to get through Philadelphia first which really sucked because I needed to switch backpacks again. I was carrying just a little bit of stuff and the backpack I was using was too big and everything was just sloshing around. Very uncomfortable. I hung around the Doyle for awhile and watched other people start floating in. First, Draftrunner and Flanders..then Chickenfeet. I saw a bunch of other hikers. Some people I hadn¢t met before. It was really great. I hung out there for awhile and then went down the street, kind of sightseeing, and found a little pub a few blocks down where I stopped and had a long island ice tea (which wasn¢t very good) and a couple beers and a bowl of crab chowder which was extremely spicy. I didn¢t eat all of it. My feet for the last few days have been hurting very badly. I was getting blisters again. I took a look at my boots and realized why. They were falling apart once again. The third pair of boots I¢ve blown up. All Montrails. The good thing was that Chickenfeet¢s father had come up to see them and pick them up for the day and they decided to go to the outfitter. I went with them because the other running shoes that I have are in my bump box that didn¢t show up. The forth pair of Montrails I had Eddy was sending to Port Clinton which was another 70 miles away and there was no way that I could walk another 70 miles in these boots. So, I went and got another pair. Slanders and Chickenfeet were a very cute, young couple. I think their real names were Ned and Lydia. I believe that Chickenfeet was a math teacher..that¢s what her dad said. Her dad ( I can¢t remember his name) but he was a real funny guy. A very intelligent person and he and his daughter are very close. When he dropped them off at the trail he was actually going to walk with them a couple of days. I know that he was a seller of textbooks for schools. So, I imagine he was in contact with a lot of very learned people. Anyway, he took us over to Wildware which was the name of the outfitter. I did buy boots. Then I came back and hung around finally got my room. I scattered everything around in it. I went down to the bar and hung out there for awhile. Talked to a bunch of people and played some pool. Just basically laid around. Lazy. Later in the afternoon Mud came running in which was amazing because I had just done huge miles and I had left him days behind and he came in 12 day behind me. He said he was not staying. He was going to do a 36 mile day that day. He¢s an incredibly fast hiker. A young guy. They had a shift change at the bar as well. The owner and his wife took over. Amazing people they are. I cannot remember her name now but his name was Pat. He offered to shuttle some people up to the store. I needed to get some moleskin pretty badly so I took a ride with him. A couple of other people went along as well. Extremely personable guy. You could tell he was just a wonderful guy. He told me the story of the Doyle and how he had worked there before and decided to take it over and that they were trying to fix it up. It¢s pretty run down. But still, a very interesting place. It is one of the original Anheuser-Busch Hotels. At the turn of the century Anheuser- Busch was in the hotel business and they had built these hotels all over the country. There are only 5 or 6 of them left, one of them being the Doyle. Fifteen dollars a night for a room and they are probably catering to hikers and I¢m sure that they don¢t make a ton of money at fifteen dollars a night. Certainly not enough to go crazy and really fix the place up nice. At some point I had too much to drink. It was probably midnight so I went up to bed. I zonked out.