Summary: Duncannon: 1146.8 Peter's Mountain Shelter: 1158.2 Total miles: 11.4 We headed back to Perkins after getting all our stuff packed. Tyler backflushed the water filter which hadn't been done in a while, it was nasty. After another solid Perkins breakfast, Tyler headed out to pick up toothpaste from a nearby convenience store. A woman who had eaten breakfast near us recognized Emily from the recent PennLive publication! Apparently the photos as well as the interview (Emily is the star) was up. The whole thing can be found here: http://www.pennlive.com/life/2017/07/appalachian_trail_though-hiker.html We took a Lyft back to Duncannon, and we were excited to get there since, after pulling out all the stops, Dean was going to meet us at the Doyle. We hadn't updated on this yet, but Michael Magnet the flower of Arizona had twisted his ankle badly and got off the trail (just before the day he was supposed to leave). We were sorry he had to leave, but we will make sure we will see him again. Dean had been pulling twenty five mile days to catch back up with us, and after waking up at 4:30am to get twenty miles in by 1 in the afternoon, he had caught us! We chatted a bit in the Doyle bar, which was crawling with hikers today, while Grant ran around town trying to track down a new charging cord for his phone. No dice. Tyler headed to the post office to see if the cookies had arrived. No dice there either. So the saga of the traveling cookies continues. They will have to be bounced again. This time we shot for ten days ahead so we would certainly (hopefully) get there after the cookies arrived. Dean ran into Sushi Roll and Roar relaxing at the picnic table in front of the post office. They had also seen the photo shoot and asked about the NPCA fundraiser. Sushi Roll is raising money for the Wisconsin state parks since they have lost all funding altogether. To find out more, we will track down more infobabout their campaign as soon as possible. We started hiking at about 3:30, after Grant gave up, Dean ate a burger, fries, and a cup of coffee that Vicky couldn't quite seem to remember. The trail cut right through a residential part of town (a woman sitting on her porch reminded us to be vigilant with tick checks). After two or three miles along roads, we were back in the woods. We heard the trail was rocky again but it certainly wasn't anymore rocky than anything else we had done. However, we had also heard that water is fairly scarce at this point in the trail. This was true. In fact, the Peter's Mountain Shelter water was also 300 feet down rock stairs from the shelter, along a .2 mile trail. Since it looked like we were going to get in a bit late, and since he enjoys being useful, Tyler charged ahead with 6 miles left in the day to get to camp first and grab water for everyone.
Everyone made it to camp by 8, and Grant came in with a collection of some of the best blackberries we've ever had. We set up tents near the shelter next to Simba and Alter Ego. They headed to bed pretty early. Later though, Grant had to wake them up since we had heard it was going to rain and they forgot their rain fly. They must have been wiped.
We ate cheesey, olive oily pasta, and spent the night laughing and catching up.
We noticed we had received a gofundme message and checked it out. Benjamin Sander, who is responsible for overseeing the NPCA's partnership with Climate Ride, had heard about our hike to fundraise for the NPCA and wanted to send us some goodies and gear! We had him send it to the oh so helpful Mary and Bruce since, in all likelihood, we would have to ask them for a package with new shoes after PA anyway. Either way, we are excited that someone in the NPCA is excited. We do keep hearing whispers of possible ugly legislation concerning national parks (drilling, privitization, etc) and we are certainly lucky to have a solid advocacy program on our side.
