Saturday, June 28, 2008

Day 81 - Delaware Water Gap (June 28)


I had a relatively short day getting into the Delaware Water Gap. I camped off the trail between shelters, and had about 12 miles into town. It was a very hot and humid day. The humidity was so high that many of the rocks were wet making the walk even more treacherous. The rocks were almost endless since at least Palmerton. My feet seem to be doing ok.
I'm staying at the local church hostile. Its a nice place with about 12 bunks. Once again, I know no one there. There are no laundry facilities in the town so I used the outside water spigot and a bucket to do my laundry. I hung it out to dry, but it looks like it might rain. If it rains, I will have all of my laundry hanging off my pack tomorrow.
Hikers are mainly traveling in packs. I've been moving between packs every few days. I think most people are traveling at about 15 to 20 miles per day. I've been traveling at about 20 to 25 miles per day. This seems to be a very comfortable pace.
Its been hot and humid, and its been hard to eat much. I'm in town eating as much as I can. I started with two lunches. Then I had two pints of ice cream with more than a thousand calories per pint. Now I'm drinking Guinness and eating bar food. I'm hoping to put on enough weight to get me to Vernon, NJ about 65 miles away. I need to start getting up at 5:00 AM again and walking while its cooler.
I'll be out of Pennsylvania tomorrow. I think there is about 75 miles in New Jersey. Then its on to New York. I'm really looking forward to Connecticut and beyond. I think we are all just enduring Pennsylvania. The state is mostly flat, which is nice, but there are a lot of rocks. Maybe there is only a little more rocks here than in Virginia. I think people remember the rocks more here because there is so little else compared to what we have already seen.

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