Stephanie's Trail Journal

July 22nd

Beginning Point: Pen Mar Park, MD
Ending Point: Rocky Mountain Shelter, PA
Daily Mileage: 15.1 Miles
Total Miles: 1064.5 Miles
Weather: Humid with afternoon rains

Had a terrible sleep last night until about 3 am when it cooled off. I felt like I was a lobster steaming in a pot. Stephan gave me back my silk liner and that kept the bugs off. We still had a couple slices of pizza and some pizza bones so we split those for breakfast. Pizza was such a good idea last night.

Lamby and Smack stayed at the park a little longer while we hiked out. We immediately were struck by Pennsylvania's strange way of marking things... Instead of telling us the location of the PA-MD state line, we see a sign that says "Mason-Dixon line". I guess I should have paid more attention to the 'war of northern aggression' as its called in the south, or the civil war in yankee land.

It also seems that whenever we get to road crossings the trail follows the road for a little bit before ducking back into the woods. The problem is that they don't paint double blazes at these road crossings to let you know! So we had lots of confusion.

At lunch we met Munchkin and her dog Kaya, an adorable chocolate lab. She was separated from her friend, D-Bone, who we finally met at the end of the day. She and her pup hiked with us to Rocky Mountain shelter. On the way there we stopped at Chimney Rocks, a pretty cool rocky outcrop. Kaya was running all around the rocks - made me nervous but Munchkin wasn't. Munchkin promised me a puppy when she breeds Kaya.

We are looking forward to tomorrow... we finally reach the true halfway point along the AT in Pine Grove Furnace State Park where the tradition is to eat a half gallon of ice cream to commemorate the midpoint. Thats another huge milestone.

Goodnight!
Steph

Posted by steph at July 29, 2004 03:00 AM