Date: 2017-07-04
From: Hawk Mountain Rd., Eckville, PA

To: Blue Mountain Summit, PA 309
Miles today: 11.5

Diane and I have been doing errands since she arrived.  It's been a lot of driving after her 17-hour drive from Wisconsin.  Sunday in Shepherdstown (WV) I got a spa pedicure.  This was the ultimate in foot care - cleaning, trimming nails, exfoliating dead skin, massaging feet and calves, lotion, hot towels, etc.  When I left I felt like I had a pair of new feet!  Since then we've accomplished the following: - Bought Crocs (in Martinsburg, WV) to use as camp shoes (my sneakers had gotten very stinky from all the days of being continuously wet); - Exchanged an AT t-shirt for the correct size (in Harpers Ferry, WV); and - Bought new bigger hiking shoes (in Reading, PA).  Today I hiked the 11.5 miles that is scheduled for next Wednesday.  It was rocky for much of the way.  I stopped at the top of the first uphill at Dan's Pulpit, a rock outcropping with a view of Pennsylvania farmland below.  A hiker named Chili Dog  was there talking on his phone.  I chatted a bit with him, and we hiked together for a while.  The next viewpoint, Balance Rocks, required a climb up a pile of large rocks.  By then Chili Dog had gone ahead.  I started up the rocks but then had second thoughts.  The view was on a side trail and was not a required part of the hike.  And the rocks were challenging to get up with my useless left arm.  Suddenly I realized that there was no one coming behind me to know if I fell and hurt myself.  I turned around and came down so as to avoid any risk of further injury.  I heard a bullfrog;  I caught a quick glimpse of a pileated woodpecker; I saw a beautiful green frothy-looking flower; and I saw a mass of day lilies at the edge of the trail.  Diane had planned to walk out to meet me on the trail when I got close to the end.  I texted her when I was 1.8 miles out.  She started hiking, then realized her car was in the wrong parking lot. She went back and moved the car.  Then she started out again.  After quite some time she texted me that she had hiked north instead of south and was turning around.  She had been thinking about how some people hike north and others hike south and was picturing seeing me come down the trail when all of a sudden it struck her: she was supposed to be headed south.  A novice's mistake.  By the time we met I was just a few hundred feet from the endpoint.My friend Paul/Big Dog, who lives in Allentown, was going to meet us but was not at the parking lot when I arrived.  We drove to meet him at a Burger King to talk about his joining the group for the last part of Maine.  Then he invited us home for dinner.  We had a lovely meal with him and his wife Haunani - perfect trail magic for a quiet Independence Day.  I broke the glass screen on my iPhone today.  I dropped the phone at Dan's Pulpit, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't broken then.  Several photographs later I noticed the screen was shattered.  I think maybe I smashed it up against a tree when I was coming down from  Balance Rock.  So getting a new phone with a sturdier case is now added to the list of chores for tomorrow.Tomorrow we're also working on figuring out how to improve my nutrition and buying food.  Thursday I have an orthopedist appointment in Winchester, VA to get my cast off.  Hooray!