34 miles of rocks and rain to Palmerton today. Two more days of PA. I was ready to start rescinding a few of my more derogatory comments regarding this lovely state’s trails, but them the deluge commenced right as I started climbing a bit of jagged, exposed rock called “knife’s edge”. Touché, PA. I can see that our duel shall continue. On the plus side: shower, ale, and indoor sleeping tonight. Laundry and a paltry 15 miles tomorrow. 20 to Delaware Water Gap the day following, then into NJ! Wooooo! My feet will love me.

Man… PA hurts… Send some good thoughts my way; the past 40 miles have been the hardest of the whole trip on my psyche. Only 80 miles left of this state and its rocks. Thank goodness for my first trail magic since VA and the Chinese buffet in Hamburg. Mmmmm general tso’s tofu….

Past two days: noted that I stealth camped in Walmart’s field, but didn’t mention that early in the morning (probably 1-ish) it began to rain. Glide set up her tent, but since my rain fly (read: a piece of wood wrap that the people at lowe’s gave us that I had yet to cut down to size) was presently our ground cover, Kittens and I attempted the “hiker burrito” method. As glide so eloquently put it today: “well, a burrito needs to be closed off”. Yeah…. Got pretty wet as a result of our bean-spill-capable burrito becoming a small lake. The good news: it’s waterproof! Kittens got it worse than I did. Oh! Called it “camp america” due to our overlooking walmart and lowes. Had a hot breakfast at sheets and got rained on more or less the rest of the day (28 miles). As they say: no rain, no pain, no Maine! Plenty of people zero due to rain… Not us!

Oh… And failed the half gallon challenge today… Only got through 3 pints in an hour… Ungh… Then hiked a surprisingly fast 7 miles to the shelter. Also! Reached the official halfway mark today (1092-ish). Wooohooo! Hoping to be in MA by early to mid-June.

4 state sheetz to sheetz hitch completed. Our group was offered money three times, twice by hobos. It took 5 hitches and was topped off with a badass ride to walmart in a old mustang. Then we stealth camped in a field behind the walmart. Firmly in hobo territory lately.