6.21.12 - Heat, Stubbed Toes, and 20 Ticks

Woke up early again and this time Coffee was feeling good. Got headed out of the hostel around 6:30am and got a hitch back to the trail. Started up the large, boulder filled climb out of Palmerton, just before 7am. It was a lot cooler in the morning and I was stoked to be taking advantage of it! The 1000 foot climb up was a lot of fun and provided great views.

We hiked until just after 1pm and had done about 15.5 miles. We rested at the shelter and got some great cold water from the spring there. I took a nap and felt great when I woke up! Ended up leaving the shelter around 4:30pm when it had cooled down a little, but not much. Was around 95 as a high today, and humid. We hiked another 4.6 miles to Wind Gap and took a short detour over to the Gateway Motel to fill our water out of their hose. The guy who answered the office door was nice. Told us where we could find the hose. When we went around back, I turned the hose on and let the water run for a minute or so to let it cool down and let anything nasty that might be in the hose get out before filling my water bottles. A lady started saying something through tr window, but we couldn't figure out what she was saying. Finally she opened the window and asked why I was wasting water. I told her it was hot to start off and I was letting it cool. She said it's always hot. (FALSE). I told her I was sorry and I started to fill my bottles. She said "no sorry, why you wasting water? No waste water." (she was Indian and hard to understand). There was no winning this battle, so ever so politely, I ignored her and filled our bottles. I didn't even turn around to look at her when we finished. I thought about leaving the water running and just walk away, but decided to turn it off. After all, they were doing us a favor.

All day I was stubbing my toes for some reason. I had to slow down and pay attention to what I was doing more closely.

We hiked back to the trail and had a nasty climb back out of the gap. It wore me out big time. I think we ended up doing about 22 miles. Not bad for a hot day with uphills and a nap. By the end of the day, I had pulled 20 (that's TWENTY) ticks off of my legs. Most didn't make it past my socks, and only one had started to embed itself. Very annoying and ridiculous finding that many! 20 less ticks in the world. I killed them as I pulled them off.

About 13 miles left to get to Delaware Water Gap. Then we leave PA and enter NJ.

Still hot as I lay here in my tent. Hope it cools down tonight so I can sleep well. Chance of thunderstorms tomorrow, which should suck for walking over what some people say is the nastiest section of PA. Aiming for an early start and in town by noon or so.