Slowly, slowly are are making our way up the eastern seaboard. We’ve arrived in upper Mass. and are taking our first full trail zero since Damascus, Virginia, which is well over 1,000 miles south of here. That is if you don’t count our five days at home. We’ve been experts at taking nearo’s and half days, but we’ve been feeling the tiredness and beat down lately. It seems to be rampant among many hikers. The big push to do huge miles this last month has left everyone a little ragged and if we’re going to start hitting real mountains soon (Mt. Greylock tomorrow. Our first 3K peak since the Shenandoah’s)…

Yesterday we finally made it to New England, but my southern mind already thought I was there the minute we crossed the Mason/Dixon line and into PA. Apparently no one else thinks that PA, NJ and NY are in New England…oh well. We are officially in Connecticut and in a few short days, Massachusetts. I am looking forward to blitzing through those states and getting to Vermont. It has been very warm and humid here and I didn’t realize that other parts of the country had heat induced afternoon thunderstorms like Florida. Yesterday we had done about 9.5 miles and Chris had jumped in 10 mile River for a swim.…

Well, we’re on the NJ/NY border eating at a deli and it has internet! WOOHOO! So, as my brother posted, we made it through Pennsylvania…aka: Rocksylvania or what others called Rocksylsnakethornia. We know two people who gave the finger to PA on the downhill into Delaware Water Gap…that’s how much PA is hated by the AT crowd. The first 1/3 to 1/2 isn’t bad, up to Duncannon. It just gets suckier with each miles after that. Not only that, we got on one ridge that had zero water for 17 miles. Ugh. Up until then water has been pretty frequent and plentiful. I guess our most interesting day was the…

Misti called me this evening. They are spending the night in a hostel on the Pennsylvania/New Jersey border at Delaware Water Gap. They spent their wedding anniversary on the trail yesterday. Today they were able to celebrate it with a short 13 mile day and a steak dinner. They’ll be resupplying soon in Unionville.

Misti’s brother here. I talked to Misti and Chris over the weekend. They had just finished lunch and were continuing on for a few more miles. I think they are about tired of walking in PA. Tired of climbing over rocks. That’s all I got for now. They should hit a town soon.

As an aside, I’ve barely taken any photos on this trip…the majority of the credit can go to Chris.

The shelter that Pie & Cake came out to. Full house that night.

Tucked away in Maryland is the original Washington Monument. Bet you didn’t know there was one older than the one in DC!

One other thing PA is known for are the copperheads and timber rattlers that hang out in the rocks. We were at a shelter just inside the PA border one morning when Chris had just gotten out of the shelter and onto the wood platform below. I’d just let the air out of my mattress when I thought I heard someone else letting theirs out too. Chris looked at his electronics bag thinking it was making the noise, when we looked at each other and I said that I thought it was a snake. Sure enough, right behind my boots was a timber rattler, pissed off that we’d woken up.…

We officially passed halfway on Saturday morning. It was exciting to see the sign and we let out some whoops and yells. Pretty much everyone you talk to feels like we’ve already done way more, but of course you look at the map and there is a long way still to go. But, we’re doing pretty darn well. The shelter registers are starting to show fewer and fewer familiar names. Many names that I recognize are ones that I’ve never met but they are a week to two weeks ahead. We know a few people, maybe three, that are ahead about a week that we’ve hiked with, but other than…