Date: 2006-03-26
From: Pen Mar Park

To: Wolfsville Rd
Miles today: 9.4

Friday, March 10, 2006Tearful goodbye, steadfast old Honda. 8-31-1997 to 3-10-2006. R.I.P.Saturday, March 25, 2006Hello, new Honda! Element in Kiwi Green. Housette on wheels. Angelmobile. Slackpackwagon. Screened windows, headroom, legroom, tent canopy.   Amoeba buys a 67¢ x 42¢ high density 2 inch foam pad to fit in the back. A little surgery to adapt that pad to the Element¢s floor clips and it¢s ready for duty. A flannel coverlet in wide coral stripes, narrow ones of pink, yellow, blue, white and green.The outside of the Element is a happy color, but the inside is a depressing charcoal gray.   The coverlet and bright yellow pillowcases help cheer up the interior. So does her embroidered 2000-miler patch. A few more touches and it¢ll be as happy inside as out. The Element has come with government-issue plates. Amoeba applies to the DMV for ¢AMOEBA¢ plates. That name is already taken.There¢s an 8 character limit. Her second choice, ¢HIKER TRASH¢, is too long.¢HKR TRSH¢? Nah. That¢ll distract some other driver trying to figure out what it¢s saying. The Element will keep GI plates until it gets a trail name.Sunday, March 26, 2006Happy Birthday, John, 25. Happy Birthday, Benny, 2.Pen Mar Park to Wolfsville Rd, 9.4 milesMountain Goat has been having trouble with her Taurus wagon. Yesterday on the way to Maryland, the ¢check engine¢ light came on and the car has been running rough.That¢s not the only trouble Mountain Goat¢s been having with her car. The latch that catches the driver door is loose. Sometimes so loose the door just bounces open. Mountain Goat keeps a wrench in her glove compartment to tighten the latch. ¢The only thing is if I tighten it too tight, then I can¢t open the driver¢s side rear door without opening the front door first.¢Mountain Goat continues, ¢When we were coming back from Atlantic City trying out for Wheel of Fortune, we heard a lot of noise and rattling in the back. When we got home, the tailgate window was hanging from one of its two bolts, the other bolt was gone. We temporarily fixed it and then we went and got a new bolt for it, but when we went to refasten the window we found that the sleeve that the bolt screws into was completely stripped. The Kid retapped it, then put the bolt in.¢Both Mountain Goat and The Kid are blessed with the gift of being handy. They¢re in the same league as Purple Sherpa.Mountain Goat continues, ¢The rubber stops that cushion the tailgate window also disappeared on the way home from Atlantic City. In place of the rubber stops, we have a rope back there now to cushion the window, but we could lose the window at any time.¢¢The driver door is the only one that opens with the key. You have to play with it until it opens. The reason I haven¢t gotten it fixed yet is I can still get into the tailgate if I have to. I figure if I can¢t get into the driver door, I¢ll just get into the tailgate.I think that¢s all that¢s wrong.¢Then Mountain Goat remembers, ¢Wait, I did notice on the way down here the windshield wipers don¢t work intermittent anymore. It¢ll go up and it¢ll wipe once and then it¢ll just stay there. Fortunately it will wipe if you have it on full wipe. Oh yeah, the windshield washers don¢t work now either. We tried clearing out the hole with a needle. I think the motor¢s gone. That¢s no big deal.""The transmission is bad, it jerks going around corners when it¢s trying to downshift, it doesn¢t always go into reverse. A new transmission is $3,000, it usually pays to put one in, but there is so much else wrong with the car, if you put that kind of money in and those other things go, the $3,000¢s wasted.""The Taurus has 144,000, the last car we kept to 200,000. It¢s 11 years old. If this car dies, I can do without another one, I¢d have to get one to hike, but I can always rent one, we don¢t really need two at home. We could get along with one car. I can walk to where I work.¢In lots of ways, the Taurus is ageing like people. The parts give out.Taurosis. Advanced taurosis.They agree to set the Element at the end point of each day's hike and the Taurus at the beginning. That way at the end of each day's hike, the more reliable car will be waiting and they'll be less likely to be stranded.Amoeba and Mountain Goat start today's hike at Pen Mar.Temp mid-30¢s, bright overcast day, trail dry.It feels SO good to be back out here, after 3 weeks off the trail.Right off, Amoeba sees some nut-looking things on the path. ¢Are these pecans?¢ Mountain Goat wonders if Amoeba is hypothermic. ¢They¢re acorns.¢2 squirrels romping, playing, chasing one another up trees.Hello to 12 boy scouts and leaders from Wilmington, MD, hiking in yesterday 10 miles and out today. Preparing for Philmont.Up Quirauk Mountain. Rocky on the way up but at the top trail becomes soft, leafy. Mountain Goat loves hiking gear. She has lots of stuff that solves hiking problems. Socks without spandex, which she¢s allergic to. Little ear caps, to keep her ears warm without having to cover her head. Unless the temp is in the teens or below, Mountain Goat radiates heat and can¢t stand having her head covered.They take the second blue blaze trail (0.2) over to High Rock. It¢s a hang gliding site as well as a viewpoint. A sheer cliff, scary over near the edge.They pass up a 0.3 side trip to Devil¢s Racecourse Shelter. Too early for lunch.Beautiful hiking conditions, temps have warmed, zero wind. Bright but not sunny.They descend, slightly. Mountain Goat says, ¢The bad thing about going down is you have to go uphill after it.¢Amoeba loves uphills, going uphill is not a bad thing to her.Hello to a young couple from Gettysburg, just out for a couple hours. They are interested in doing longer hikes, day-hiking. Just past 491, beside the creek that parallels the road, is a bubbling clear clear spring. The water gushes up and flows over a brilliantly green mossy area into the creek. Mountain Goat gets a picture.Wild onions. Amoeba remembers back in 2003 the sight of wild onions sparking a 6-state craving for Eggs Benedict, PA to VT. Snip the wild onions and put them on top of hot Hollandaise sauce on top of 2 perfectly poached eggs on top of juicy broiled ham or Canadian bacon slices on top of 2 homemade English muffins. When she finally found a place in Manchester VT that actually had Eggs Benedict on the menu, it was strawberry season. And it was hot. Eggs Benedict season had passed.About 1PM they meet the first long-distance hikers: Icecrmman from Mt Desert Island Maine and his daughter Optimist and their hiking companion Rising Star.Icecrmman is carrying a plastic replica of a cone of frozen custard!Icecrmman says that there is one thruhiker ahead of them, by one or two days. He and Optimist are number 2 and 3. They started on Feb 7, enduring lots of snow and ice, so much snow that they've opted to skip the section through the Smokies until the weather improves. They say a number of people who attempted the Smokies during that spell of bad weather are off the trail. Amoeba tells them March 3rd on the side trail to Plumorchard Shelter in GA she met other hikers from Mt Desert Island -- Maneak and his family. Icecrmman and Optimist know them and had hoped to hike with them for a short while, but they didn't connect.Rising Star is a songwriter. His favorite section of the AT is the section between the Rockfish Gap VA and Connecticut.Icecrmman, you're welcome to use the free wireless high speed internet back at our motel room to upload your journal, says Mountain Goat. Thanks, but we'll keep hiking. We¢ll try to upload at Pine Grove PA.Goodbye for now, Icecrmman, Optimist and Rising Star. Hope to see you again somewhere up north.Warmer, sun poking through gray skies. Signs of green. Garlic mustard has leafed out. Some of the grasses are greening up. Shoot of skunk cabbage. More wild onions.Reset cars at Rte 77 and Wolfsville Rd.2:30 at the parking area on Wolfsville Rd they meet a couple who have just hiked in and out to Ensign Cowall Shelter. She heard but didn¢t see a pileated woodpecker. He hopes to thruhike in 2012, when he retires. With some others, he helped build the Ensign Cowall Shelter.A quick mile back to Rte 77. Sign shelter register. No sign of pileated woodpecker, but 2 bluebirds are at the powerline crossing sitting on a blazepost. On their way back to the motel, Amoeba and Mountain Goat stop to photograph 5 dignified-looking long-horned bovines, coats in shades of white, black, gray and brown, some straight, some curly, brass rings in their noses. Note to Amoeba: when you get home, look up what these are.