Day 63: Vernon, NJ

I made it into Vernon, NJ today. I ended up taking 2 zero days in Delaware Water Gap hanging out with some southbounders and watching the footage of the hurricane. It was supposed to head up this way but we only ended up getting hit by the edge of it...thank goodness.

My mom had work stuff come up so she was unable to make it out here this weekend, so I'm just hiking. The weather has been wonderful but pretty cold at night. Much better than the excrutiating heat.

Here are some excerpts from my journal:

Day 57
"A bunch of southbounders have come in all night. Three of them were really cool...Wickett, Nemo, and Moon Dog. There were some really shady characters too. One guy had a huge knife strapped to his back. Wickett stated it best when he said 'You don't use that knife to open cans...you use it to KILL people!!!'"

Day 58
"We got up and went to the diner for breakfast. Then I got sucked into the town vortex and decided not to hike. We got a shuttle into town and the boys did laundry. We ate lunch at Friendly's!!! I had a 5-scoop Reese's Pieces sundae with extra Reese's Pieces. It was so yummy. When we got back to the laundry, we were in the middle of a Cops episode. Some domestic fight that had so many cops in that place...'bad boys, bad boys...watcha' gonna do?'"

Day 59
"At about 11:00 we decided to take another zero day...go figure. Wickett was able to talk the hotel down to $45 rather than $50. Negotiating skills at their finest..."
"I made all the boys watch Real World tonight. They weren't too happy about it, but oh well."

Day 60
"We finally packed up our stuff and hung out until the noon check-out time. We were actually hiking today. We hiked back over to the trail and said good-bye. I'm going to miss those three...they were a lot of fun to hang out with."

Day 61
"I'm liking New Jersey. There are lots of great views. I have been pleasantly surprised. The rocks haven't stopped which is disappointing."
"I fell again today...I'm just a walking disaster. This time I at least fell into some bushes so I didn't hurt anything."

Day 62
"I felt unusually strong this morning. Both my knees felt great. I decided to try to step it up a notch and shoot for a 20-miler. At about 3:30, I really started dragging. I made it though...finally at 6:30 I got into camp. I was really tired but not in pain. Going to do a 20 again tomorrow into Vernon."

Well, the above were my famous last words...did another big mileage day into town and I'm in lots of pain again. I don't think we'll be doing any more 20-milers. Going to try to keep it between 15 and 17 for the rest of my trip. I only have 3 weeks left!!! I will be coming off the trail the weekend of September 24th. Will spend a week in Indiana with family and then a week in Chicago trying to acclimate back to the real world. Set to return to work on October 10th.

All of the sudden its becoming real that my time out here is almost over. I obviously won't make my goal of 1000 miles, but I've had a blast out here and that is all I really care about. We'll see how many miles I can knock out in the next three weeks. I miss you all and can't wait to see everyone!!!

Here are some facts about my hike so far:
Section Hike '05 Total: 628.7 miles
Section Hike '00 Total at Day 63: 478.5 miles
AT Total: 1,342.7 miles