It was not exactly light when I was woken up by Bunny. She kept telling me some nonsense about we’d slept too late and claiming that it was already 8. Running Griz was still here and he claimed to be an early riser. I checked my watch and, surprisingly, Bunny was telling the truth (I don’t normally believe anything she says until after she gets some coffee in her—low caffeine levels create hallucinogenic conditions in her mind). It looked like we might get some rain later today.
The rain started the exact moment we picked up our packs and stepped out of the shelter. I guess we were due. It never rained particularly hard, but it was constant and penetrating creating a dreary mood for the day. Combined with our corporate talk of the night before, I immediately went into a dark mood. I know this will shock people as I am normally a “glass half full” type of guy.
It was raining, so naturally I thought of visiting Disneyworld and the Land of Tomorrow. Promises have always been made to people about how great technology is going to make our lives. How the labor savings will give us all more free time and our lives will be so convenient. In other words, corporations have always lied out their asses and we keep buying it.
Instead of more free time, Americans who are lucky enough to have jobs work more hours than ever (and effectively get paid less). The only reason we have a minimum wage is because it’s cheaper than slavery. If a company owned slaves, they would have to feed them, house them, and provide for their wellness. Now we can just call them lazy for not making enough money to pay for their own way.
It’s true that technology has benefited some people in our country. We have over 400 billionaires. Thanks to technology, they can brain wash the average moron in this country into believing they want a lower tax rate for the billionaire class because when they become one (wink wink) you’re not going to want to pay a high tax rate. It amazes me that the average American buys the BS that we have 280 million lazy people that don’t work hard instead of the fact that we have 400+ greedy f#$&ers that want to own everything.
I think you can follow my mood for the day easily enough. This was only enhanced when we came to a busy road crossing and tried to hitch a ride into town to get out of the rain long enough to have a meal. Pennsylvania people we meet when walking tend to be very friendly (even though the state has a very redneck feel to it most of the time—the constant sound of gunfire along the trail tends to reinforce my belief). Put a Pennsylvanian behind the wheel of a car and I think they would 99 times out of 100 run down Santa if they saw him on the side of the road. The 100th time would be to splatter mud on him from a puddle.
At least today, we only got the mud. After 20 minutes of trying to get a ride, we opted to sit under trees on the trail and have the rain drip on our wraps for lunch. On the bright side, we can’t complain that our wraps were too dry to swallow.
At the next road crossing in a few miles, we came upon some possible trail magic. It turned out to be a cooler full of empty water bottles, we were too late. Despite the rain, this section of PA tends to be short of natural flowing water sources, so this is a very nice gesture by some Pennsylvanian that had to get out of their car long enough to understand compassion.
We were the last to arrive at Kirkridge Shelter. Purple Haze, Earl Gray, Meatloaf, and Flip (2 brothers) were already there and spread out. One brother was lying sideways in the shelter but moved over so we could fit in. I just can’t imagine any scenario where my brother would be willing to go hiking and crap in the woods. It will definitely be an “end of times” scenario if I see this happen.
This shelter is unusual in that it has an actual filtered water spigot. I went up to get water and saw a sign that confused me: “Please private respect retreat.” It sounded a little foreign cultish to me, but I wasn’t going to venture past the sign. When I got back to the shelter, I checked Guthook to find out there is a private retreat behind us. They must have meant “Please respect private retreat” but opted to go for the sign painter with head trauma approach to make people wonder.
Rain was blowing in from the east all night which, fortunately for us, was the exact orientation of the shelter. Before we even got in bed, everything was soaked. It didn’t really matter to us because we were being picked up by a friend of mine from college tomorrow when we got to Delaware Water Gap. I would prefer for the weather to go to Hell once we made it town and off the trail for a couple of days, but, I can be flexible.
EFG
Thanks for the update. I dream of making even one of these trails but won’t be brave enough…or thank goodness dumb enough to go alone…need to find a cohiker. Stay safe and thanks for the pics.
Don’t sell yourself cheap, you are dumb enough to do this 😉