Day 74 - Time Warp (June 21)

I entered an industrial age time warp today when I walked into Duncannon and the Doyle Hotel. This hotel was built in 1905. It is very similar to my dad's old Empire hotel. The Empire was built around 1918 if I remember correctly, and it was demolished by Cleveland State College in 1988.

Both hotels have a small room with a small closet. There are two bathrooms on each floor. The lady who owns the Doyle said the original advertisement for it stated it had the best of everything. She said she has four permanent guests. My dad had 50 permanent guests.

The current cost at the Doyle is 30 dollars per night. The Empire cost was 2 dollars and then 3 dollars in the mid 1970s. It was about 110 per week in the 1980s if I remember correctly.

Its amazing how times have changed. My grandparents used to rent rooms in their house up to the 1970s. It was common for single men to rent these rooms or the rooms in the Empire. We all seem to want more these days. The trail has sure helped me understand what is really necessary.

Duncannon looks like an old industrial town. There are lots of old stone work in buildings, retaining walls, and bridges. The Doyle Hotel probably was used as a traditional hotel until the 1960s or 1970s. It looks like there are two or three large rooms on the second floor that may have been used as kitchen areas or ballrooms. I would like to know how people ate when staying at a hotel like this. Most of the guys at my dad's hotel had hot plates, I think. I do not remember kitchen areas in my dad's hotel.

I started today at Boiling Spring, and hiked about 26 miles to Duncannon. It was hot, and I was tired from yesterday's hike. I learned that one should not go 6 days without a shower or bath in conditions like this. I don't remember if I mentioned yesterday how I missed a turn in the trail just before the campsite. I ended up on the railroad tracks. I knew the campsite was near the tracks so I picked a direction and walked until I saw a tent.

The terrain was mostly flat today with some of the trail on some ridges. I went past an old cemetery. It was a raised plot with large sandstone blocks and an iron fence around it. Many of the tomb stones were the old limestone slabs. It looked like some of those were at least as old as the early 1800s. The two newest were polished granite dated from the 1890s. The cemetery was abandoned and overgrown with weeds. It was interesting to think about what life was like for people who lived their lives over two hundred years ago.

I think I'm getting into the rocks that everyone keeps talking about. They do not seem that different than what we have already seen except they are supposed to last for a couple hundred miles.

Heather is coming in for the weekend.