Day 77 Pine Knob Shelter to Falls Creek Campsite

Today's miles 18.6.  AT miles 1061.1

We had an earlyish start again today, 8:15am.  It was a warm but cloudy morning to start with but by late morning heavy rain and a thunderstorm hit us.  We could see the black clouds and hear the thunder getting closer and closer to us as we were walking along.  We walked in it for a while until we reached Ensign Cowall Shelter, where we stopped for a break and to escape the rain, thunder and lightening for a bit.  Once the thunderstorm appeared to have passed we carried on, it was still raining but it stopped about half an hour later and the sun tried to come out. 

The trail remained fairly level this morning but it did have lots of rocky sections.  The afternoon got hillier with a few ups and downs, again very rocky in quite a few places.  Maryland is supposed to be the easiest state, it may be from an elevation profile but not by the number of rock obstacles on the trail.  Pennsylvania is supposed to be the rocky state but Maryland must come a close second.

We arrived at Pen Mar Country Park just before 4pm.  It was deserted today but looked like it would be a busy place on a sunny weekend as there were numerous picnic tables, kids play areas, pavilions etc.    We ordered a pizza delivery whilst there!   Special offer of two large pizzas and a bottle of coke.  The local towns pizza place delivers to the park for hikers.   We could only eat half our pizza each, but we couldn't waste any so boxed the leftovers up for later and packed it in Nigel's backpack.

From Pen Mar Park we had just a mile to walk to reach our camp spot for the night at Falls Creek.  A lovely spot next to the creek, no shelter just camping space, we're the only ones here.  On the way we crossed the Mason-Dixon Line.  Leaving Maryland and entering Pennsylvania our seventh state, leaving the south and entering the north.  Appalachian pronounced 'appa-latch-chian' in the south is now pronounced as we would say it 'appa-lay-chun' in the north.

We hit the sack early, we'd set our alarm for 5:45am, the first time we've used an alarm on the trail, so we can be up walking earlier tomorrow and finish earlier to avoid some of the late afternoon heat. Its forecast 29°C for the next couple of days.