Date: 2007-07-01
From: Doyle Hotel, Duncannon, PA

To: Philadelphia
Miles today: 0.0

Monday 30 July 2007Madison, WISo I left you thinking I was done, right? Well, so did I. Weeks picked me up Sunday morning at the Doyle, and we drove into Philadelphia. On the way we pulled off the interstate and drove up to the 501 Shelter, which was a short distance away. We left a note in the log to Gus and Wayne. Our next stop was at REI in Conshohocken, just outside Philly. I bought a lightweight one-person tent, a Big Agnes Seedhouse, planning to get it to Gus at Port Clinton.Wayne had a cell phone with him, and after thinking about it, I called to let Gus know I had this tent for her. On Tuesday, July 3, Weeks and I stopped at the grocery store, bought up a bunch of soda, gatorade and snacks and drove back to the trail. At Hamburg, PA we stopped at a Dollar General and got a bunch of candy, then drove to Ye Olde Outfitter near Port Clinton, where Wayne had parked his car for the week. He had given me a note to the owners of the outfitter asking them to allow me to pick up his car.Well, we got to the outfitter, and they were reluctant to release his car to a total stranger. They asked that Wayne call, then they'd give me his car. No problem. We drove on to 501 Shelter with our trail magic and hauled it into the woods. When we got there we found trail magic left by another friend, Dennis Boyer, from Dodgeville, WI. Dennis has roots in Pennsylvania and was in the area for a family funeral. He's also hiked most of the AT over time. Unfortunately, we had missed Dennis by about three hours.Not too long after we arrived, Wayne and Why-Not strolled in. Gus followed a bit later. We hung out, ordered pizza from a nearby town, and ate dinner. Gus set up her tent in the shelter, which is fully enclosed and has a huge skylight. It met with her approval. Weeks and I took off and drove back to Ye Olde Outfitter, where I picked up Wayne's car. Weeks returned to Philadelphia and I went back to the 501 Shelter where I spent the night, returning to town the next morning.I spent most of the week relaxing at Weeks' parents' house. We rented a few movies, went to a couple of others, went to a Fourth of July party at the house of a friend of Weeks', and on Thursday the 5th I took off to Delaware Water Gap to pick up part of the bounce box we had sent from Duncannon. From there I drove back to Port Clinton where I found Gus, Wayne and Why-Not waiting for a shuttle to the outfitters.We drove up the road and got beds at the hostel the outfitter maintains, then drove into Orwigsburg to do laundry. Across the street was a market where Gus and Why-Not resupplied. We went for dinner at a little Chinese place, then back to the hostel.On Friday the 6th we all piled into Wayne's car and went for breakfast in Port Clinton, then we dropped Gus and Why-Not at the trail. It was at that point that I decided I needed to take a break, then get back on.Wayne and I drove back to Wisconsin, pulling into my driveway in Madison about midnight Friday night.On Saturday I took my old leather boots to a repair shop and asked them to replace the soles. Then I drove over to REI and found a pair of new boots identical to the old ones. The following Monday I made appointments with my podiatrist and the people who made my orthotics.I saw the podiatrist on Monday the 23rd, got my orthotics on Thursday the 26th, and made a reservation with Greyhound to New York City for Thursday, August 2. The podiatrist thought I had some tendonitis in my right foot. I hope that with new orthotics and boots identical to the ones I hiked 1,500 miles in over the past two years, that I will be able to survive out there for another few hundred miles. I've had several massages, hoping to get my shoulder back in shape. It's not 100 percent, yet, but I'm hoping it will be good enough to allow me to sleep and hike (not at the same time!) in relative comfort.Meanwhile, Gus has been laboring through the rocks of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. Weeks told me the rocks ended around High Point, New Jersey, but Gus said the rocks in New York were worse than Pennsylvania. She made it to Delaware Water Gap a couple weeks ago, where she took a zero at a cabin owned by Weeks' parents. She was through Unionville, NY on the 21st and crossed the Hudson River a couple days ago.My per day mileage, meanwhile, has dropped from 10.80 on June 30 to 8.42 today. That's what happens when you take 30 zeros. Gus' average, meanwhile, has dropped to about 10.3 per day, as she's managed to hike about 260 miles in the last month. She's been trying to get her pack weight down. The core weight, without food and water, is about 20 pounds. Add several days worth of food, a day's water, and it gets up to about 35. I think it's been wearing her down a bit.So, wish us luck. I hope to get off the bus in Bear Mountain, NY on Friday, and catch up with Gus in a week or two. That might be a really stupid idea, but I've usually been willing to try any stupid thing I think of. If it turns out to be a really, really stupid idea, I'll figure out how to get from where I am to where she is when the time comes.If I can keep my head in the attempt, and my feet's don't fail me, I figure we can get to Katahdin before closing time. It it's necessary, we'll flip up to Katahdin and go south. At whatever point Gus finishes the trail, I plan to get back to Bear Mountain and close the gap to Duncannon. I figure by then the poison ivy will be dead, and it'll be cool. The way I like it. Of course, the rocks will still be there, but I can do the rocks if my feet cooperate.'Til next time,