Date: 2005-06-19
From: Boiling Springs, Pa.

To: Darlington Shelter
Miles today: 14.3
Weather: overcast clouds

7 pm I guess the bottom of my feet got itchy. On the spur of the moment, I decided to walk out of Boiling Springs and get back on the Trail again.I asked Vern to drive me into town and drop me off at ATC Headquarters.I stopped at Neeley's to pick up a stromboli and ate 1/2 of it and packed the other half for dinner tonight. When you walk out of Boiling Springs, you can tell you're very much in civilaization. For the last 10 miles, I have been going through corn fields and wheat or oat fields. There are quite a few roads, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike. There's also a set of railroad tracks, and you can hear the cars fairly close by. The good thing is, it has been overcast this afternoon and it's a bit cooler. It has made it alot nicer to walk through here. I would think that when the sun is out, walking through these fields would be killer heat. Looks like it was a good move to walk out of here today. I saved myself some beating up of the sun. I'm not feeling bad walking right now. I think it's going to take a little adjusting, carrying the extra 15 pounds on my body that I have gained since last week. It was a great week off the Trail to the tune of me gaining 15 pounds.Maureen gave me a ride back to Vern's house this morning after the party at Mark Z's house. The party at Mark's was awesome, just perfect!I have to thank you Mark, for everything you did. You are a hell of a guy. I really do appreciate it and I will find a way to pay you back someday.This weekend, Vern dropped me off at Mark Z's house Friday evening. We got lost going up there. It's a bitch of a drive up to his house. He's up darned close to the Shenandoah Ridge within 300 yards of the Trail itself. It's quite a drive, I think everyone that came up was pretty stunned by the time they got up to the top. Steep, rocky, dirt roads. Alot of people showed up. My parents,my sister Todd and my 2 nephews all showed up. They are on a 3-4 week road trip and they were close enough to the area that they could drop in. Elaine and Lee both came down from Fairfax, Virginia. Of course, Mark and Jan were there also. My good buddies, Mike and Estee, were there too. A couple of other people, some of Mark's friends and neighbors, and of course Maureen. We had a grand old time! Mark is the ultimate host. He provided about 4 times as much food as we could possibly eat. Friday night, when I got to Mark's house, he and I ran up to the David Lesser Shelter and tried to blaze a trail and left a note there for through hikers to come on down and eat, drink, and be merry with us. No through hikers took us up on it, which kind of sucked. I also looked at the register and happened to notice that alot of the people that wanted to come down, had already walked through, including Bean Town, Sam I Am and Origami, Red Wing and Hopeful, and Patch. I was pretty sad about that. The party commenced at about 11 o'clock and went on until late at night. It was just the perfect group. So many interesting people showed up. I'm sure I drank too much, as did everybody else. I got into bed at about 12:30.This morning, when I got up, Mark was already cooking. He cooked like 4 dozen eggs, 3 pounds of bacon, God knows how many sausage links, and blueberry pancakes. I think everybody ate more than they wanted to because there was still plenty of everything left. Everybody started taking off pretty early. Maureen and I actually got out of there by about 9 o'clock. We stopped at a cherry stand that was fairly close to Vern's house. It was a great weekend. I can sit and talk about it for hours. It was a perfect party and a perfect week. When I got to Vern's house, I felt like it was time for me to get back on the Trail. I was going to wait for tomorrow morning and get a day ahead of him. I also talked to Mike, who is definitely going to meet me at Palmerton. So, I'm trying to run far enough ahead of Vern and Albert that if I slow down to hike with Mike I will be able to either let them catch up with me, or that they will be close enough for me to catch up with them. I'm looking for a place to tent now. You're not supposed to tent anywhere in this flat section through the Cumberland Valley but, I may have to break the rules. It's going to be getting dark soon. I would have to walk about another 5 miles to get to the shelter and I don't recall there being many tents set up there from the last time. I did not get into Darlington Shelter until 9 o'clock because I'm trying to ease into the walking so I'm not killing myself. I did about 5 hours worth of walking at a little under 3 miles an hour, even though it was very flat ground. I walked into the shelter and it was already dark for 15-20 minutes. I did not pull out my flashlight, figuring I could still see the ground well enough. I didn't want to stop and take a few minutes to take the flashlight out, which was a good thing because I didn't have it! Apparently, it had dropped off my pack. So, I had to set up camp in the dark with the aid of my tiny, watch battery operated light. That was a little bit of a bitch. I finally got into bed at about 10:30. At about 11 o'clock, I heard a bunch of noise outside. It was Scavenger and Crazy Legs. They came in and set up camp. I went over and asked if Scavenger had found my flashlight, he did, so that was pretty good. That's it for today.