Date: 2011-06-05
From: The Allenberry, Boiling Springs

To: The Allenberry, Boiling Springs, Day 2
Miles today: 0.0

(In which I take my second zero and spend another night at the Allenberry)When we checked in Buffalo and I got free tickets from the resort owner to the resort's theater, so after dinner we head over to see Sisters of Swing. We are humorously under dressed in our unwashed shorts and t-shirts, and when another hiker who received a free ticket decides not to go because he says has nothing to wear, all of his clothes are being washed and he's actually wearing a towel.The show is a collection of musical numbers loosely stitched together by a thin thread of narrative. Sitting still in the dark theater until after 10pm I feel more exhausted than I have before on the trail, and I realize that thru-hikers almost never sit inactive. We hike for most of the waking hours and are busy the rest of the time setting up camp, preparing and eating food. Chatting around a campfire is probably our least active activity, but even this is less passive than watching TV, surfing the internet or most of the other pastimes so common off the trail. In my exhaustion I'm not sure if the play stops making much sense or if I'm just too tired to follow it, but it is a novel experience I'm glad to have had.* * *In the morning we go for the breakfast buffet, and six dollars buys us access to a room filled with french toast, bacon, scrambled eggs, sticky buns, toast, danishes, cereal, juice and more. We eat breakfast with Checker and Stanley Thermos, hikers we had passed who had been just behind, and it's nice to get a chance to chat with them again. While speeding ahead involved meeting almost entirely new people, slowing down will involve meeting mostly people we've already met, and it's fun to start seeing familiar faces again. We each eat more than twice as much as any of the non-hiker guests, and we wonder once again why the resort goes out of its way to offer hikers such a good deal, but are grateful no matter what their mysterious motives may be. (One speculation is that the hiker rooms are used to compare new aerosol deodorants, or as a bootcamp for new maids.)We sit around all morning, and Buffalo ices his ankle, which has been sore ever since he did the 45 mile four state challenge. We research camp chairs and boomboxes on the resort's wifi. I find a surprising number of posts about camp chairs on Backpacking Light, the forum for ultralight hiking where I did most of my gear research for the trip. The most popular ultralight camp chair seems to be the Sling-Light, an 18 oz folding chair that looks pretty sweet in its '70s style publicity photo on its website. Buffalo looks at the picture on my iPod Touch screen and decides that it's the chair he needs. We consider trying to hitch the 8 miles to Carlisle to look at WalMart or Target's camp chairs and boomboxes, but hear that it's a difficult hitch so decide against it.I try out my brand new shoes, my last pair of the discontinued New Balance 790's, by going for a short run. When I pass the ATC building I see Ghetto Sheep again. She's out walking with her friend Michele ("Mitch", AT '98), and hearing that Buffalo and I were looking to get to Carlisle, she offers to drop us off at Target, where Michele could pick us up, having planned to go there later anyway. We stop by the Allenberry to pick up Buffalo and then Ghetto Sheep drives us over to Target. We chat more about ridge running jobs, and Ghetto Sheep tells Buffalo, who's considering applying for a ridge running position next summer, the best tips for applying (she called up her now-boss every few days during the application process to check in).All of Target's camp chairs are in the 6-10 pound range and don't look particularly comfortable, so we decide to hold out for the Sling-Light. We look at boomboxes and rechargeable iPod speakers as well.Battery-powered iPod speakers seem to be the boombox of the current generation, but none of the lightweight ones they have at Target recharge directly from the wall, so we decide to hold off on speakers too. Having struck out on our extravagant items, we end up buying only the practical ones like bug spray, headlamp batteries and vitamins.Michele / Mitch, meets us by the checkout and gives us a ride back to the trail. It's interesting to see how connected she still is to the trail more than a decade after thru-hiking, and I think about how many people's lives are forever changed by their hike. Back at the hotel Buffalo and I resume our relaxing, and pretty soon both of us fall asleep, taking afternoon naps on the comfortable hotel beds.Tomorrow we plan to return to Duncannon, and I might get my first opportunity to try some trail running.