I don’t know why, but everyone was in a mad rush to head out of the Mansion this morning. There were only three of us signed up for breakfast (I’ll never pass up a $5 breakfast on the trail). Snow Angel, from the Netherlands, who we met in Waynesboro, joined us. She is going about the same pace as we are and has decided that a 6 month visa will not be long enough to finish.
To train for the Appalachian Trail, Snow Angel decided to do some section hikes of the GR10. It’s coming up on the 1 year anniversary of us starting the GR10 so we had lots to talk about. We have not met a lot of people that even know about the GR10 yet alone hike it. We all agreed that it would have been wiser to hike the AT as a training hiker for the GR10 rather than the other way around, like we all did.
We had to be out of the Mansion by 9 so we finished up getting ready on the porch. Pilgrim came up as we were finishing up and told us that he, Thumper, and Skywalker are going to take a zero day at Duncannon to go to Hershey, PA for the amusement park. They had gone to Gettysburg the day before yesterday and loved it. We said we might consider Hershey. He was waiting for Thumper and Skywalker to show up to do their half gallon challenges. Pilgrim bet $20 that he can finish under 20 minutes.
We had to walk through Pine Grove Furnace Park as part of the trail. This is a great little park with the original iron furnace still standing. There’s a lake with a beach, concession stand, bathrooms (yes, the presence of porcelain excites me), and several picnic areas. It’s a beautiful little state park.
One thing that I’m noticing already in the north is that the trail runs much closer to private property. We often find ourselves walking between houses or along the backside of houses. In the south, the trail ran mostly on national forests or state lands. In PA, so far, we hear much more sounds of civilization (lawn mowers, cars, gun shooting, etc). We hear gunfire on a daily basis now. I didn’t realize PA had so many schools.
As we were climbing out of the park, we met a sobo section hiker, Hoot Owl. When I found out he was a local, I had lots of questions for him about what we should make time to do in PA. He gave us lots of great info including directions to Green Mountain Grocery & Deli. He wasn’t real big on Hershey. We talked to him for almost 20 minutes before we discovered that we might be able to eat three city meals today and still hike almost 20 miles.
Green Mountain Grocery was less than a quarter mile off trail and well worth the side trip. We got huge subs (which the latest member of the Glutton Club, Bunny, could not finish). We also ran into Smiles and Honey Badger again. It was just such perfect weather that I sat on a shady bench outside of the grocery store for a while after lunch until Bunny started pushing for us to get going. We still have another 10 miles.
But it was an easy 10 miles of walking. We got into Boiling Springs around 8. We saw Wallaby sitting with Stoic on a bench next to the lake. They gave us a lay of the land and caught us up with what everyone was up to. ET’s fiancé picked her up and they are spending the night in a hotel. Gray Squirrel went over to an old friend’s house for some wine. Wallaby and Stoic were both camping outside of town.
We headed to the ATC regional office to get the number of a hostel Hoot Owl had told us about this morning. We made arrangements to get picked up after we ate. We then went to the restaurant Hoot Owl told us about for a late supper. Mission accomplished, 3 town meals and almost 20 miles in a single day.
Lisa picked us up at 9:30. I had misunderstood her when we talked. She told us her son was having a small party out where we would be staying so I thought that meant we should take our time. She wanted us to hurry because they were going to another party. We had 3 missed calls on the phone asking us when we were going to be done.
The hostel was actually an old chicken coop which had been converted to a sleeping quarters. It was really kind of cute. She got us a couple of beers, showed us around, and then headed to her party. I heard her son say something about having to share his bathroom with strangers. I though a 24 year old living at home should be able to recognize when his parents want him to leave by renting out his space, but, in an unusual moment of self restraint, I kept my mouth shut. Instead, I opened my beer and joined the party around the fire waiting for my opportunity to be the second stranger to dirty his toilet that night.
EFG