My berry paradise.

Day 73 - 6/28/10
Had a strange night. During my sleep I was suddenly woken up by bright
flashes and booming thunder in the distance. Slightly out of it, I
struggled to quickly zip my tent vestibule to protect my gear from
getting wet because I thought any second it would start pouring. I
layed there and waited for the rain to come, but nothing did. I could
still see flashes and hear booms, but no rain. So then I decided I
should take advantage of the crazy show going on in the sky. I made my
way outside and just stood there watching the sky light up and hearing
the blasts. It was really neat, like watching a Revolutionary War
cannon battle from a distance. I went back in my tent after 5 minutes
and eventually fell back asleep after the thunder and lightning faded
away.

I woke up around 7:30 and saw that Ace had already left. She was going
to meet her boyfriend by a certain time at some road crossing I guess.
She left a note and an orange she got from that crazy guy yesterday,
which was a nice compliment to my breakfast of oatmeal, a clifbar, and
salami. I started hiking at 8:20, and took my first break at a shelter
6.8 miles away. It had a really nice piped spring nearby. I spent a
good hour there, preparing myself mentally for the climb up from
Lehigh Gap that I would be doing shortly. In my book it is described
as a "Rocky climb...deforested ridge due to zinc smelting from
1898-1980". When I made it there it was exactly what you'd expect from
that description. I think I hiked it at the perfect time though
because normally you'd be baking in the sun because it's completely
exposed, but when I went up there was a light drizzle, just enough to
cool you down, but not enough to make the rocks slippery. It was a
really fun climb, so Pennsylvania just earned a few more points in its
favor.

After that you skirt the side of the mountain for a while, and that's
when I came to the berry paradise. First were the thousands of black
raspberries. I literally could grab a clump of 5-6 in each handful,
and I did that at least 20 times. Finally I had to tell myself to stop
because it was slowing me down too much. Then I went through the
blueberry patch, and that was just as amazing. Again I could grab
clumps off at a time, and all ripe ones. So sweet and juicy. That
really made my day. Also the rain I had gone through earlier had moved
on, and I watched from the top of the mountain as it moved along. It
was neat, I actually could see the rain streaks coming down from the
cloud, could see exactly where it was raining.

I made it to Little Gap Road around 3:20, and decided to take a mini
snack break. Had a Snickers and some mixed nuts. From there to Smith
Gap Road was a long boring stretch with no water and lots of poison
ivy. Kind of annoying. I'm always trying to think of new things, keep
myself entertained during the dull parts, and it's amazing what
memories your mind uncovers when you have hours on end to dig. Today I
just remembered this time in high school when Big C had cornrows. I
think he was planning to take them out, so we undid a few of the back
ones, and soon realized it was mullet-esque. After undoing all the
back ones he put a hat on and it looked like he had a legit mullet. We
went over to the sports complex where some game was going on, baseball
or something, and everyone laughed hysterically at Big C's faux-mullet
thing. I hadn't thought about this in years, but when it hit me on the
trail I almost laughed out loud to myself. So boring parts sometimes
help unearth great memories.

At Smith Gap, around 6:10, I met a hiker and hiked with him down to
the guy's house I had mentioned in yesterday's post. I got here and
gave $5 dollars to get a hot shower in his house, a trip into town for
some grub (hot wings and fries), and a ride back up to the trail in
the morning, which I think is the best part because it was a 1 mile
hike downhill to this place. Plus he has a spigot out back, which I
plan on taking out 5 liters with me because there's very few places
from here to the PA-NJ border. Anyway it's late, so I'm off to bed. A
shorter day tomorrow, maybe 17 or so.

Total miles: 1260.7