Date: 2005-06-28
From: Kirkridge Shelter

To: Delaware Water Gap
Miles today: 6.4
Weather: few clouds

At 5 am, Mike rolled over and asked me if I was ready to get rolling. I suggested that we wait another 30 minutes to see if it would stop raining. It seemed like a fat chance, since it had rained all night, non stop. We got up again at 5:30 and sure enough, by the time we finished packing it stopped raining. It all worked out, I love it when a plan comes together. Mike walked out about 15 minutes before me, I finished packing and went to use the bathroom. I caught up with him about 40 minutes later. I had taken a pretty wicked fall on some slick rocks. Mike was moving pretty slow, he was beat up after 30 miles of Pennsylvania rocks. His ankles were sore and hurting. We did manage to get out to the road to Delaware Water Gap at about 9:30. Mike wanted a Parliament Light first, and I wanted to eat first, we agreed that I would run ahead to the gas station to buy the cigarettes, and run back and meet him at the diner. I hauled ass and ran down to the Sunocco Gas Station and bought some cigarettes and cigars. I was just putting my pack back on and head for the diner when a car pulled up to me. It was Estee. She was early, she wasn't supposed to be there until 11 or so. It was a coincidence that she pulled up to me, she had no clue where she was supposed to meet us and was just driving around. It worked out pretty well. I told her to drive down to the diner and i would just meet her there, it was only 1/4 of a mile. When we met up again at the diner, she pulled out a bag of Crystal Light Iced Tea packets and 4 Hershey's Vanilla Creme Milkshakes. I guzzled one right away. We started walking up the hill to meet Mike, who was still walking along. Here comes Mike walking next to this little gal named Gina, who had diverted him into her house for coffee and a cigarette. She is a future hopeful through hiker. She is very interested in talking to through hikers and talking to them. Apparently her kitchen table is signed by any through hikers she can get to come by. We walked to the diner together, all 4 of us, sort of. We got a big table and sat down with Blue Light and Boots. I turned Boots on to a couple of the Hershey's Milkshakes. He got a big kick out of them. Mike ate like he hadn't eaten in 3 days. I think he ordered 2 breakfasts worth of food.   We got out of there and Mike and Estee invited me back to Staten Island for the night, and promised to drive me back in the morning. I had some reservations about it because I wanted to stay focused on what I was doing. I was thinking of walking out of town today, but I decided to go back with them. It was good, I had alot of fun.   We got to Staten Island and Estee hung out for a little bit, but she had to go off to work. Mike and I hung out for the rest of the day and got a couple of 6 packs of Coronas, we sat around and talked and ate. I played on the computer for a while.Mike's friend Greg, a campus cop from the college Mike works at, stopped by and Mike made dinner for all of us. We sat down later and started to watch Million Dollar Baby. Greg fell asleep on the big leather couch. Mike says he always does that after he eats there and they turn on a movie. Estee came in at about 2 am. We sat up and talked until about 2:30 am, which was really late. I finally went to the downstairs couch and crashed for the night.