Hiking Trail Journals

Appalachian Trail 2003 - Chelsea's Journals

Entry #83 - July 1, 2003

9:20 PM - Started raining around 10 or 11 last night. But we were all packed up & in our tent drifting off to sleep, so who cared! It was thundering & lightning for a while, though, so I didn't like that at all. Couldn't fall asleep till it stopped - around midnight, I suppose.

Got going fairly late this morning - around 8. Seem to be having trouble waking up early lately, which is unfortunate since the days are hot and we should be hiking in the morning more when it's cooler.

Got to Pen Mar Park around 10:30, I suppose. Walked through to hit the road to get into Cascade to the post office about a mile & a half away. Were just down the road & starting to wonder if we were going the right way when a car stopped on the road by us. It was an old lady in an 80's VW hatchback. She was wondering where we were going, and when we told her, she told us to get in, since she was going that way anyway! How cool - we were very excited. At the post office, we got our maildrop with all kinds of extra goodies - Thanks, Sheryl! Also got an additional b-day box from mom & dad with all kinds of good stuff! It was fun, but we were in a huge rush because we didn't want to hold up the lady. Just took it all to organize later. After that, she took us to the grocery store to pick up a few things, and then back to Pen Mar Park. Now that was Trail Magic!

Had fun at the Park taking our time & organizing & eating. Had way too much sugar, though. Let's see - we each had 2 cupcakes, wafer cookies, banana, orange, pop, chips and probably more. Good thing the Trail was pretty easy going after that.

In 0.2 miles we were in Pennsylvania. Kind of exciting, to go through the states faster now. Were in Virginia for probably a month & a half. Tenting yet again at the Tumbling Run Shelter. Glad to have good weather. Andy's out by the fire. I'm feeling pretty tired this evening. Had another bad fall today. This time I didn't go straight down on my face, but tripped, stumbled for probably 15 feet, but couldn't get my balance back because of my heavy pack. Down I went, face first again, but lucky to only hit my leg pretty good. Feet are just hurting way too much these days. Maybe time to start looking for new shoes & some cushy insoles.

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