Day 120, Monday, June 11. South Mountain Tavern—13.4 miles

I was woken up by a light shining in my face.  Oh, crap, the caretaker came back and he’s going to kick us out into the rain.  Then I heard “Oh, dude, I’m sorry.  Do you want some weed?”  I was pretty sure this wasn’t the caretaker.  Pilgrim got up and talked to the guy for a bit to smooth things over.  He was just a local stoner out riding his motorcycle in the rain looking for a bathroom (or so we figured out when we found a big pile of crap in the adjacent pavilion).

We were woken up again at 7, but this time by lawn mowers.  Government jobs are devoid of logic—mow the park at 7a every Monday, rain, snow, or shine.  We went ahead and started packing up.  Bunny and I always roll up our sleeping gear first thing, so when we saw a man walking briskly towards us, I was able to don my pack and say that we had just stopped to dry out (gallantly throwing Thumper, Skywalker, and Pilgrim under the bus—it’s a dog eat dog world and they looked like they were wearing milkbone underwaer). 

The guy wasn’t the caretaker, but was a neighbor of the park.  He told us some of the history of Penn Mar Park.  Prior to the depression and WWI, Penn Mar was an amusement park that regularly drew in up to 20,000 patrons a day.  The pavilion we were sleeping in was a replica of the old train station that brought people up.  He also told us he hiked the entire trail in 1974 and 75.  One year he went to GA and hiked back to Maryland.  The next, he went to Katahdin.  He was always hiking home.

We said our goodbyes to everyone and headed north.  We were only a couple hundred yards from the Mason/Dixon line.  It was almost 10, but we were the first to leave.  A few other hikers had come in, but they were drying out before continuing on.  Our ‘early’ start was rewarded by us running into a deer right off the side of the trail.

The Mason Dixon line held many surprises for us.  First off, we were back in the north.  Secondly, there was someone camped just past it indicating that whoever was in the tent, more than likely did the four state challenge (VA, WV, MD, PA…45 miles).  Third, was a box holding 2 cases of cold beer.  We were the first here today so we had our choice.  Bunny and I were contemplating how many we could carry and decided on two each. (Maybe it’s me that can conjure beer and not Gnome…we’ll have to devise a test).

The guy we originally thought might have been the caretaker came strolling down the trail.  I asked, and he confirmed, that this was his magic.  He has been coming out to the park almost every day to meet and great hikers and give them magic.  He remembers how great it would have been to have a cold beer when he was hiking. 

The next surprise was finding money on the trail. This is the second time. This time, we found a dime, but last time was a real haul—$0.37. We are almost an entire half dollar on our way to a million.  From the acorn grows the mighty oak.

Things seemed to be going our way today. Bunny spotted (actually, I did too, but I let her lead today so she gets credit for the find) a plastic bag sitting on a sign for a spring.  It contained 2 mini snickers bars and a carved spoon.  Bunny likened it to finding an immunity idol on Survivor.  There is a guy carving these spoons and hiding them on the trail.  They are numbered and ours is #25 dated 6/18. Our chances of finishing the trail just went up. 

We were able to get on Facebook a little last night and saw everyone’s comments about winning the Triple Crown. We thank you for the encouragement, but, as I’m constantly telling myself, it’s not a competition. We are HIKING the Triple Crown and completing it is the glory in itself. Thank you all, but please tone it down, but yes, it will be history when we complete it. We have no need to “Justify” our journey. 

We couldn’t decide where we were going for the day. We had already walked 7 miles.  By that point, I knew I couldn’t make it to the shelter Bunny wanted to make because it was another 13 miles. We stopped at a shelter for Bunny to do a little brown blazing while I worked on my feet which were getting rubbed raw from leaves because my gators were falling apart. ET (Emergency Tuna) stopped in and told us about a bar ahead that offers free showers and camping for thru-hikers as long as you patronize them.  This sounded like a great compromise. 

We stopped again in a mile and a half at Tumbling Run Shelters.  There was a ridge runner, Wizard, there and he helped seal the deal by telling us he didn’t recommend the alternative shelter we were considering. If we were going to a tavern with town food, we might as well eat the pizza and beer now. Bunny couldn’t finish all of hers, so we gave a piece to a sobo section hiker. We shared the magic.

With a new plan firmly in place, we were, once again, food motivated. We flew (if you have a very loose definition for flying that equates to a little over 2 mph) the 4 miles to the road crossing where the tavern was located. We had Bunny’s hitchhiking sign that she made with Bunny to stand on the road and get us a ride. PA drivers are not very compassionate or friendly.  Not only would they switch sides of the road to indicate “hell no,” they even sped up around us to let us know what they thought of hikers. I wanted to give up and go on, but we had agreed to meet Pilgrim there. 

I sat down on the shoulder to get out of my wet boots and socks before walking into town.  This might be the future trick we need. A nice guy saw me writhing in agony and stopped to ask Bunny if she needed a ride to get away from me.  She didn’t ditch me when she had her chance.  Instead, she got him to give us a ride for the 2 miles to the tavern.

We set up our tent where everyone else’s was before heading in for food.  When we went inside, we saw Gray Squirrel, Pilgrim, ET, and Wallaby. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t a great idea for me to have 5 glasses of iced tea before I had a beer.  By the time we returned to our tents, it was too cold to have showers so we didn’t accomplish the one act we needed the most.  It’s only been 4 days since our last shower, we’ve got 3 more days until it becomes mission critical.

EFG