Date: 2005-05-30
From: 3.5 mi South of Cove Mountain Shelter

To: Doyle Hotel - Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 7.5
Weather: broken clouds

Miles hiked today : 7.5I woke up this morning at 4:45 a.m. to "water" the bushes and decided to pack up and get moving rather than sleep aother hour or so. As such, I was packed and hiking at 5:25 a.m. I believe this is the earliest I've begun my hiking day on this trip.The sun hadn't yet risen when I left camp, though there was enough ambient light that I didn't need my headlamp to see. At 5:55 a.m., the sun was just beginning to rise and I reached a clearing that allowed me to see the sun as well as the hazy, misty clouds down in the Cumberland Valley.At 7:05 a.m., I passed the side trail to Cove Mountain Shelter and at 8:30 a.m., I reached PA274, which is on the edge of Duncannon. I took my time walking up the street, snapping pictures of a large mural, as well as the Doyle Hotel itself. At 9:00 a.m., I was standing in front of the Doyle and saw a sign announcing that the Doyle just celebrated its 100th anniversary. Unfortunately, the Doyle wasn't going to open until 11:00 a.m. An interesting fact about the Doyle Hotel is that it is one of a series of hotels built by Anheuser-Busch in the early 1900s. The series of hotels featured a baron the ground floor with hotel rooms in the upper floors. The Doyle is one of the last remaining hotels of its kind.While walking around Duncannon, I had also discovered that the local restaurants didn't open until 11:00 a.m. I was getting ready to backtrack to the park on the edge of town for breakfast when I saw Doc. He told me that a hiker by the name of Cocoa Bean, who I first met at Dick's Dome Shelter had been taken to the hospital last night. Apparently she'd been bitten by a brown recluse spider near Pine Grove Furnace State Park and after 2 days, the bite wound was infected and becoming necrotic. I'm glad that Cocoa Bean was able to obtain medical attention and certainly hope that she recovers quickly.Besides Cocoa Bean's plight, Doc also told me that there was a breakfast place called "Goodies" just across the street from the Doyle. When I'd seen "Goodies" earlier, I had thought it was a florist. It turned out that the florist and restaurant had split a single entrance building into two small rooms for their separate businesses. I had 3 excellent blueberry pancakes and an omelette for breakfast.After breakfast, I headed down the street to do laundry and ran into Kodak, who had seen Cocoa Bean's bite wound. Kodak said that the blackened, bruised area around the bite was worse than any picture she'd seen in a textbook. Poor Cocoa Bean! I moved on to the laundromat and found that there wasn't a restroom, so changed out of my dirty clothing behind one of the machines. Amusingly, there are signs posted in te laundromat that the facility is under video surveillance 24/7. Hopefully I was discrete enough.After laundry, I walked to the Doyle and tried to check in at 11:30 a.m. Pat, one of the owners, told me that the rooms wouldn't be ready until 1:00 p.m., so I made some telephone calls and sat in the bar with some other hikers until we were able to check into our room. I split the room with Dad's Grin and Wingit, my share of whch was $12.50 plus tax.One of the telephone calls I had made while waiting for the room was to Trail Angel Mary, who lives in Duncannon. She had had 2 coolers along the trail in the last 10 miles, one with candy that I reached last night and one with juice pouches that I reached this morning. She had left a note with her telephone number on the coolers urging any thru-hiker to call her if they were in need of anything, be it internet access or a ride to the grocery.The internet access at the Doyle cost $2 per half hour, which was outrageous. When I talked to Trail Angel Mary, she said to come on by to use her internet access and when I asked if she knew whether Star Wars Episode 3 was playing in the area, she said that she would take us to a theater.Upon arriving at Trail Angel Mary's apartment, I found that Bones was there and had stayed the previous evening. He was planning to make dinner for everybody, but needed to do a grocery store run. After I checked my e-mail and updated my trail journal, I went grocery shopping with him, after which, Mary, Dad's Grin, Wingit, and I bundled into Mary's car and headed to Harrisburg to see Star Wars.We caught the 5:30 p.m. show and I found Episode 3 to be much superior to the previous 2 films. I'd been wanting to see it since it came out nearly 2 weeks ago and it was well worth the wait. After the movie, we went back to Mary's and had a delicious pasta dinner prepared by Chef Bones, followed by apple pie for dessert.I returned to my hotel room at 9:30 p.m. to journal before calling it a day. Tomorrow I'm going to lounge around for a bit before heading out of town around noon.Bedtime at 10:50 p.m.