Date: 2004-06-03
From: Leroy A. Smith Shelter

To: Ramada Inn, Delaware Water Gap
Miles today: 20.2
Weather: scattered clouds

(10:02 PM)Time flies when you're hiking. It's easy to miss a day in the journal, and once you've missed one, skipping two comes naturally. Then you're left trying to reconstruct three days that have already started to blur -- I miss having the Data Book to mark my nights. For a week now, I have been carrying Wingfoot's 2004 Thru-Hikers Handbook -- Stanimal found it lying on the trail -- and ripping out pages as I go, erasing the past and leaving, my memory and this journal aside, no record of my [illegible].   So let's see what I can reconstruct.After extensive consultation, we recall spending the night in Allentown Shelter on the 31st, with Tell It, Scorpion, and Pill Pro (whom we were meeting for the first time -- he hiked with a hiking cane and was able to talk Tom Brown with me). The next day we all headed into Palmerton, PA, aiming for the jailhouse hostel.Stanimal and I came in late, so we didn't get goody bags like Pill Pro, The Divas (3 girls on since Harper's Ferry), or Unfinished. Still, I took toothpaste from an extra bag. Palmerton was noteably hospitable, and we all had an excellent stay in the basemant of the town borough, along with props from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (specifically green wigs for the Oompa-loompas) and prom decorations. Please note the excellent corn fritters from Bucks -- greasy pancakes sweetened with corn. The exit from Palmerton was not so pleasnat (esp. after meeting a shelter overseer on the way in and procured a hitch-free ride).First: Stanimal and I walked out of town after not getting a hitch, but walked out in the wrong direction and ended up one town and 5 miles west of the trail. We talked with a local who never offered a ride, and then Stanimal charmed a man putting gas into his car so that it only cost us $9 to get back to the trail. According to Stanimal, it was a hard sell, but we did absolutely not want to walk four miles on top of the previous two before the sixteen or so we had planned.Second:   ??? Shelter sleeps six (according to the Companion, eight according to the leader Diva Franny). We pushed hard to arrive early enough to claim shelter space, and met Tell It with Scorpian. They told us how a local had picked them up even before sticking their thumbs out. They told us how they were taken back to said locals residence, fed, laundered, and otherwize pampered. They did pretty well.At some point we went down the hill for water; Unfinish pressed on; The Divas moved into the shelter (we laughed briefly having seen them avoid putting their tent up for three hours, but made room). Which bring us to today: a hop, skip, and nineteen mile jump down to Delaware Water Gap (D.W.G. henceforth) and a stay at the local Ramada and goodbye to Pennsylvania.What dull facts!The hiking has been rocky and brutal, or smoothly graded, alternately. Fun bouldering up a [illegible: C________]   out of Lehigh Gap; a morning walk through glowing sunbeams; afternoon showers and localized thunderstorms: more rocks than you can shake a stick at.Stanimal is good company, and his low-mileage habits keep me from pushing as hard as I would like, which is too hard.