June 21, 2017
10:27 PM
Total Miles: 1189
Day 80
Headed out today around 11. Had a later start than usual but was not complaining.
It was sad to leave Ham bone’s parents house.
A constant wondering if I will ever see these people again. You could tell it was the thought running through everyone’s mind when we hugged our goodbyes.
Such a strange and unique feeling it is. What wonderful people I have met on this trail so far but how sad it is to think I may never spend time with them again.
Woodpile drove us back to Duncannon and we headed out.
We dumbly planned 20 miles and had to hold out for it because we had told Alex to meet us there. He spent the last few days in Duncannon and we were looking forward for the tramily to be back together.
It was an easier stretch of terrain but my pack was driving me nuts.
Why is this thing so heavy.
I was too spoiled with slack packing that it made my bag seem almost unbearable. Well… That and my overzealous mind when I resupplied on food.
I always. Always. Get way too much food.
During the day we kept leap frogging with a newly wed couple named Tinkles and Doc. I think they said this was their honeymoon trip. Oh wow. How awesome is that? Future husband of mine, where ever you are…Plan on a honeymoon similar to theirs. 😉
Anyhow, Tinkles saw us coming up later in the day and said “Here comes ebony and ivory!” Planner and I got a huge kick out of this as no one had said that to us before.
We perservered the long day and met up with Alex and settled for the night.
P.s. Planner broke a branch. She was trying to hang her bear bag on my branch and it snapped, crackled, and popped right off.
It broke right after where I was hanging my bag. So my bear bag was still intact.
I was dying of laughter. How lucky I was and how lucky she was it didn’t strike her on the noggin.
I am ready to get back into the groove.
Day 81
Woke up feeling more ready to hike. The day back is always a little hard. But the second day my body has its mojo back.
It was hike naked day today. Did I take part….
No. 😣
As enticing as it was
1. It was cooler than I thought.
2. No one else further north was doing it.
3. I’m chicken?
It was fun to ponder about though. I kept squinting my eyes when I heard someone walking behind me. Please don’t be naked. Please don’t be naked. How would I even respond???
Thankfully I didn’t run across anyone doing such a thing.
I did run across some beautiful spots today though.
Mid afternoon a thunderstorm suddenly moved over me.
Sprinkle. Sprinkle. Downpour. Thunder. Downpour. Thunder. Sprinkle. Sprinkle.
And it was done. Just like that and it left me drenched.
I looked up at the clearing sky and said “what the hell?!” and then laughed as I shook my head. I guess a little storm of 20 minutes is better than it down pouring all day.
I arrived ridiculously early to camp around 5:00 Pm. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I did a nice yoga routine and chatted with a couple guys named Yahtzee and Slim Shady.
Alot of people prefer to get to camp around 5:30 but to Planner and I…There is so much daylight still! We prefer to get to camp around 7.
Almost have less than 1000 miles left. I have a feeling this second half is going to fly by.
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 
Planner’s stick made me remember a random thing from the trail…you know how you get all these weird things that become normal… so thought I’d share… you know when you’re hiking along and a random stick kind of gets caught between your feet and you kind of trip skip hop over it and it snaps? It doesn’t happen often, but as you know when you hike all day every day there’s more chance that it will. We used to yell out, “Makin firewood!” Every time it happened. Just thought I’d share. Also one time In a more remote part of Maine when sometimes it was hard to tell where the trail went, I was up quite far ahead of Preston and the trail made a sharp turn with no double blaze and no warning. We were always a little nervous about losing each other (shared gear!) so I yelled back to him, “There’s a turn in the trail!” And he thought I said, “there’s a turd 💩 in the trail!” We died basically 😂 It’s so easy to be slap happy out there so sleep deprived and starving….oh, and for one more fun fact, for a big part of the second half for us it was fall and the leaves covered the trail. All day they would make this particular swish swish at this particular tempo and always, always everyday sometimes all day to the point of making me crazy I had the nutcracker song of the dance of the sugarplum Fairy in my head. Was fun at first eventually I was like shuuuuut Have fun! The little states seem to fly after you get through Pennsylvania, and you won’t believe the intensity of some of New Hampshire and Southern Maine. But oh, the views and pristine perfect wildness. ❤️️
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