Date: 2009-06-07
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Miles today: 0.0

Dear readers, I am on a roll right now, pounding out these updates getting ya'll up to date on the recent happenings! I added a bunch of photos earlier and should have a bunch of videos posted tomorrow! Excited? You should be!As you know from my last entry, I strolled into camp that Wednesday evening late, around 8pm, just before the rain started to fall. Everyone happily slept in the shelter that night, staying warm and dry. The next day was much cooler and the rain had stopped temporarily, but soon started up again a few miles into our morning. Once again, rain gear got donned. It was too cold to not wear it. It rained all day. Luckily, we planned to only go 13 miles into Caledonia State Park where we were planning on camping then meeting my parents early the next morning for breakfast then a 20 mile slack pack into Pine Grove Furnace State Park. All were invited, but it was only the girls who chose to slackpack. The boys pulled a 23 mile day Thursday so as to only have 10 on Friday into the infamous Half Gallon Challenge. Once again, the Goonies parted ways, divided by gender (I'm noticing a trend). The day was pretty miserable, cold and wet. I think we all contemplated forgetting about the slackpacking and just staying at a shelter with a roof over our head rather than paying to camp at the state park to meet my parents in the morning. Ultimately, the prospect of hiking with next to nothing on our backs the next day won and we collectively decided to suck it up and stay at Caledonia State Park. The good thing was that it was Thursday and the weather was horrible so we had the entire campground to ourselves. Gangsta picked the tent site located conveniently next to the bathroom that had running water, hot showers, and electricity. It was still raining when we arrived so we set up our tents as quickly as possible, then took our packs to the bath house and set up shop for the rest of the afternoon. It was warm and dry in there. We made it even warmer by taking hot, steamy showers and constantly running the electric hand dryers. We strung a clothesline across the bathroom to hang our wet stuff up to dry. We whipped out our sleeping pads and food bags. We took really long showers - it was hard to get out. We read books, we journaled, we checked email on Gangstas cell phone, we made phone calls, we cooked and ate our dinners. Oh and we also went a little crazy taking video footage. It was glorious and was, by far, the most fun I have ever had in a campground bathroom. Around 9:00 we left the comfort of the bathroom for our own tents to go to bed. But don't worry, it was still cold and rainy when we woke up and our little butts ran right back into the bathroom.I have never wanted to hike less than I did Friday morning. It had been raining non-stop since Wednesday evening. It was really cold... flashbacks to March weather. Everything was soaked. My parents were coming, thankfully, to take almost all of our water-logged gear. How easy it would be to simply hop in the car with them that morning and say "screw this, I'll hike it after my weekend off the trail." Why would I choose to hike twenty miles in that weather when my parents were there and I could be in a warm house instead!? Alas, Gangsta and WindUp convinced me to treat it like a band-aid - "just do it, get it over with. Rip it off fast. It will be over before you know it, then you never have to think about it again. If you don't, you'll be a day behind everybody. Do it with us, while you have group motivation to help get you through." They definitely had good points, I knew that by procrastinating the 20 miles, it'd just be on my mind all weekend, and ultimately, I'd wish that I had done it with G and WindUp. The terrain was supposed to be really easy, too, we could crank it out. And this was my opportunity to slackpack it! Done. Decision made. Once I accomplished the most difficult task of getting out of my tent, I was fine. I was motivated as all hell to just get it over with. My parents showed up with delicious breakfast for us! We didn't make them eat in the bathroom... we went to a covered pavilion. We loaded up our soaking wet gear into their car and set off with very sad, wet, sorry looking packs. But they were happy packs, because they were empty. And ya know what? In twenty miles we stopped twice. Once for fifteen minutes and once for ten minutes. We cranked that day out in 6 hours and 25 minutes. We left just before 10 and were done by 4. It was the fastest 20 miles I have ever hiked. You know you are in good shape when you can walk over 3 mph for 20 miles without getting out of breath. The highlight was passing the official halfway mark about 3 miles before we finished that day. Of course, it's unmarked (since it changes every year), we just knew it was a half mile passed the last shelter of the day. So approximately ten minutes after the shelter we chose the best looking puddle we could find and celebrated with some Bon Jovi and puddle jumping (video to be posted soon). Good times, good times...And three miles after that, it felt so good to walk into Pine Grove Furnace and see my parents waiting there. Waiting to take me to a beautiful little cottage on a lake to forget about the trail for a few days. In the car my mom had a suitcase from home for me filled with my favorite sweatshirt, pajama pants, my Office Season 4 dvds, my favorite sun dresses to wear so I can feel like a girl again, a package of disposable razors so I can shave for a second time (!), my chacos so I can wear something other than Keen's or Crocs, my laptop with my iTunes music collection on it, as well as all of the photos/video I've sent home since my trip started. Life is so so so good.Gangsta's here, too, with her fam! Its funny seeing each other in something than the same hiking clothes we've been wearing since March 15. We were both wearing a dress today... I think if other hikers saw us, we might be unrecognizable. She one upped me though with cowgirl boots on (and makeup). We made sure to snap a photo. One more day of pure bliss! It's back to the trail on Monday. I don't want to think about it.The happiest of happy trails,WagsPS-weather was not conducive to Half-Gallon Challenge participation. The last thing I wanted to do was eat ice cream after spending the past two days in rainy 50 degree weather. Oh well, I'm over it.