Date: 2008-05-17
From: Duncannon, PA

To: Duncannon, PA
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: scattered clouds

What a weird nite of dreams! I dreamt I was part of a royal party with the Queen of England and her mother, but was mistaken for a dangerous person, so the English secret service pulled guns, but Incessant was also an agent and she came running and sliding on her knees down a grassy hill with her pistol pulled and aimed @ the real perp! Then was a not so pleasant dream that resulted in something happening for the first time in my life. I had a cat named Rusti for 18 years (over half of my life) and he died of kidney failure back in 2002. I dreamt last nite that he was alive still, but I couldn't find him, and my house was burning, so my sister showed up and told me she found him with a leg missing and suffering, but they hadn't taken him to the vet because he was going to die any minute. In my dream, I dropped to the floor with my head in my hands and was bawling. Well, this was like losing him all over again, so it translated to real time, and Karen woke me up telling me it was ok, it's only a dream and I was totally bawling my eyes out. Ugh...that really really sucked.Don't ask me why or how this stuff comes up, but it's hard to shake feelings so intense when it feels so real you know?We had set the alarm for 9:00 to check the weather, but around 7:00 we both woke up and Incessant (knowing I had not slept well) said, "Let's just take a zero and take some time to get things all packed up." I was fine with that, and I've sort of felt emotionally "off" today, so it was a good call on her part.We went back to sleep and woke up around 9:30 a.m. We ate our leftover pizza for breakfast, I finished some journaling and we played a game of cards (I won!). It was nice to lay around, and I was nursing a headache all day today, so Incessant returned some phone calls and we relaxed.We also conducted duct tape triage on Incessant's rainpants. I think we did an excellent job, but I did take pics of course. I also downloaded my guestbook entries and wow folks, you all are so awesome to write the comments you do. You just have no idea how much I appreciate it. I save them in my pocketmail and on hard days, I read them and your words continue to motivate and keep me connected, so I want to say thank you so much.Around 4:00 we thought we would walk down to the convenience store about 1 mile away, but it started raining, and we thought better of it. Instead we waited a bit and walked about 2 blocks to the Ranch House Restaurant for a late lunch. This place had excellent food and service. I had a club sandwich and Incessant had a steak. Sandy, our server, was super nice and it was also obviously prom nite somewhere, which cracked me up. Couples and groups of young women were coming in all formal, and this place was not exactly fancy (felt more like a large country diner), but I realize it's all relative for kids who live in tiny towns.In the parking lot of this place were 6 Corvettes all from different years. My favorite was the oldest, a 1978 model. This place is on highway 11, so it gets tons of busines.So we walked back to the room and arranged an 8:30 a.m. shuttle with George. Then we just packed up our packs, looked @ the weather (yup..MORE rain forecasted tomorrow too...BOO HOO!) and are chilling right now. Incessant and I only have 2 more hiking days left together (BOO HOO to that too)! We are amazed at how quickly you forget the discomfort of being wet and cold. I think that's a good thing, or none of us would go back out after a day like yesterday.So back to hiking in the a.m. We only have about 16 miles total to go, so we're going to try to do 8 miles each day. Depends on stealth camping options really. That's the fun of it though...the unknown.~Certain------------------------------