Today's miles 19.6. AT miles 1117.5
Another great day again today. The weather was cloudy but still very warm and humid and we had a few very light rain showers throughout the day. At 8:30, Cindy from Holly Inn kindly drive us back to Pine Grove Furnace State Park. We visited the AT Museum, although nothing new for us AT information wise it was interesting to see real life artifacts from the past and an old Kathadin summit sign and the staff were very friendly. From the museum we wandered over to the general store again waiting for them to open at 10am to complete the half gallon ice cream challenge, the half way hiker tradition that we were disappointed not to be able to do yesterday. Uff-da was also there for the challenge and Grasshopper for support.
10:05am the challenge was on. Chocolate ice cream for Nigel, Mint Choc Chip for me and banana split for Uff-da. The tubs were no longer half gallon size they were slightly smaller 1.5 quart size (1.42 litres) but it was still a lot of ice cream. We all completed the challenge feeling very full afterwards, not too sick though, in 34 mins, Nigel first, me a spoon later and Uff-da a couple of spoons later still. It was fun and definitely worth coming back to do this morning. The award for completing, a wooden ice cream 'member of the half gal club' spoon! Thru hikers wouldn't want to carry anything bigger! Just as we finished, Farmer, a French Canadian hiker arrived to start his challenge too.
We started hiking at 11am, after a couple of miles we passed the 1100 mile mark. The first twelve miles of trail were pretty easy again, fairly level with a few small ups and downs. We then had a shortish but steeper climb up to a couple of rock mazes. The trail designers added a bit of fun by making us climb up, around and through a load of large rocks/boulders. We went over a couple more little humps including Centre Point Knob which had an AT plaque at the summit. This was the original AT midpoint many years ago. It was then downhill to Cumberland Valley out from the woods into open agricultural land.
We walked across a few fields before entering Boiling Springs. A very pretty small town set around a fishing lake. We had planned on camping at a campsite just before entering the town but the campsite had no water supply. We carried on walking along the AT into town looking for a water supply thinking we'd get some and head back to the campsite. There was a river but the river water looked too dirty. By the time we'd walked all the way into town to the ATC Mid-Atlantic Office where they had a fresh water supply, we thought it pointless to walk all the way back along the AT again to the campsite. It had also started raining so we decided to carry on along the AT to the edge of town where there was the Allenberry Resort. We didn't need much convincing to change plans, Allenberry was a lovely resort which had a hiker room rate of $40 for two, bargain, the best value accommodation so far.
We arrived just before 7pm. The rooms were lovely in a separate lodge building. We showered and then headed to the restaurant for something to eat. The mornings ice cream did well and kept us going until about 4pm when all we had was a small snack. We both felt like something healthy for dinner though, Nigel ordered a Caesar salad with chicken and I a Caramelised apple and goats cheese salad, both very nice.
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