Small World

It’s Tuesday, June 25, and I’m at a campsite just outside the town of Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania. It's an interesting spot, because the campsite is situated between some train tracks and a working farm that grows wheat and corn. So I've already seen three trains go by, and just before I started this recording, there was a combine in the field adjacent to the campsite that was harvesting some wheat.

So, not your typical campsite. But the town of Boiling Springs doesn't have a lot of hiker camping or lodging options, so they put in this little site that's kind of in a grove of trees beside the farm and just before the tracks. It can accommodate several tents, and they put a Porta John here, so it's a good place for hikers to camp out. There's easy access to the town.

This morning, I woke up at the Ironmaster’s Mansion, after being the sole occupant of the hostel overnight. I got a pretty decent night’s sleep. It was warm, but I had a fan pointed at me the entire time, so that was very helpful.

And if you recall from my earlier post, Low Key's Amish family came down to celebrate him and his cousin Gloss hitting the halfway point by doing some Trail Magic in the form of a ton of baked goods. And in the evening, they delivered all their leftovers to the Ironmaster’s Mansion for any hikers who might be staying here — which, again, was just me. So this morning, I devoured several cinnamon rolls and some homemade bread with honey butter, which was great, and balanced it out with some fruit. [Wife note: Sunny! He had a *third* chance to take a pic of the cinnamon buns, and still nothing!]

I left the hostel at a little after 7. The weather was cool, and it was nice, just walking through the park. Not too far after the park, the trail started heading back into the hills. Thankfully, in Pennsylvania, it seems like the inclines and the climbs aren’t too bad. So it's pretty easy hiking at this point, which is good, because right now, physically, I'm not in peak form. The arch of my right foot is really hurting me, and my right hip hurts, and my left calf hurts, and I've got sort of a knot in my back. So when I first get going in the morning, it's not a particularly pleasant experience.

I wasn't sure how many miles I was going to be able to cover today, so I was just sort of taking it one mile at a time. And a couple miles in, I bumped into Chuckwagon and Meow Mix, and they’re a married couple I first met probably around May 12, just south of Pearisburg. I hadn't seen them since and then bumped into them randomly today, which was funny. 

So, I was just sort of hobbling along, and I think the elevated temperatures are causing my feet to sweat even more than usual, because in the first thousand miles or so of the trail, I only got one blister, and that was a result of me wearing my hiking boots a little bit too long, after they’d technically worn out. But now, I'm getting blisters more regularly. And I think it's because my feet are slipping around inside my boots.

About two-thirds of the way through the day. I came to a ridge and a little area called the Rock Maze. So the ridge is covered with these very large boulders, and the trail kind of snakes around and up and over and in between the boulders. So it was an interesting little section. Very slow going, but kind of fun.

And then when I came out of the mountains, the trail kind of spilled out into farmland, which was kind of interesting.

Overall, it wasn’t a terribly eventful hiking day. My goal was to get to Boiling Springs, which I clearly did, and I think I covered about 19 miles. So over the past six days, I've done 99 trail miles. That sounds like a lot to me, but I think it's probably below average for thru-hikers around these parts.

Anyway, I got to the campsite and set up my tent, and at this point, it was about 6:30, so it’d been a long day. I got changed, put my Tevas on, and kind of limped into town to a place called Caffe 101. I ordered a really nice, large, fresh salad with shrimp on it and got fried ice cream for dessert, which was sort of a blast from the past. Apparently, I’m still in a dry county, so no beer to be had, unfortunately. Instead, I drank probably all the iced tea they had in the entire establishment.

Afterward, I stopped at a convenience store to grab a gallon jug of water, because there isn't any water at this campsite. And when I got back, there was a gentleman standing at the edge of the campsite, just watching the combine harvesting the wheat — or we think it was wheat. I suggested that it might actually be barley instead, and he was like, “Oh, I should have thought of that. I'm an investor, and I run the finances for a brewery in Newport News called Tradition Brewing Company.”

I kind of did a double take and said, “So you must know a guy named —— ——.” And then he did a double take and was like, “Yeah! I do! How do you know him?”

So, our friends in the Charlottesville brewing scene know who I’m talking about. There’s a guy who did some brewing in the area and then moved from Charlottesville to Newport News a while back to be the head brewer at Tradition, but he’s since moved on.

I said, “Really amazing brewer, but maybe not the best employee,” which convinced the investor guy that we were talking about the same person. He said that pretty much summed things up perfectly.

We had a little chuckle that we both knew this guy and kind of marveled at the idea that we’d ever cross paths this way. And then we just talked about the beer business for a while, which I always enjoy. Now, I'm getting ready to hit the sack and hoping that the temperature drops a little bit and not too many more trains come through, now that the combine has stopped for the day.

Tomorrow, I’m going to hike into Carlisle, which is only 8 miles away on the trail — I think on the roads, it's like 6— and it's pancake flat. So that should be easy. I’m going to spend two nights at the Quality Inn there so I can make my way over to the REI that’s in the adjacent town of Mechanicsville.

I've got to get my footwear situation sorted out and maybe buy myself a new backpack if I can find something that would work better for me. I might try to transition over to ultralight hiking. I'm not sure if that's in the cards for me, but I'm certainly going to look things over and hopefully talk to some knowledgeable people there.