Day 95
We got up at 5 am this morning to have an early start without the heat and bugs. We were still sore from the walk yesterday and our feet were torn up from the rocks, but we wanted to get a long break in for the hot part of the day. We were off and hiking before 6:30. The rocks this morning were brutal on our already sore feet and the trail was poorly blazed. It took us only until 9:45 to get to Lehigh Gap and the river. We were planning to hitch into Palmerton to get a snack and stay in some AC. We got a hitch immediately from a nice woman who was from Maine. We got to Palmerton and it was like stepping back in time! It was a cute little town straight out of the 1950s. People stopped on the street to ask us how we were. We had a man pull over his car and get out to talk to us. He told me I reminded him of his daughter and gave me 20 dollars to get something to eat. MedicineMan and FatherMan were in town and we went to the Diner with them for breakfast. While we were there, we met a local names Tyler who offered us a ride back to the trail. We did a mini resupply and the four of us got in his truck to go back up to the trail. We had only 11 miles to the shelter and were ready to go. The first 5 miles went quickly, but the next six were rocky and slow-going. Our feet were killing us. I was starving and out of energy. Nokey and I pushed on and made it to the camping area at Leroy Smith shelter at around 8 pm. Since we’d gotten up at 5, it was a long day and we were beat. We cooked a quick dinner of couscous and took care of my big toe, which is now infected and sore. We met the ridgerunner and ran into Spirit and Y’s Guy, who we haven’t seen since Damascus and my third day, respectively. We got into the tent just before dark and decided to sleep in late tomorrow! The photo is of the Lehigh River.