Today's miles 24.1. AT miles 1213.7
What a long day! I was unwell in the night, I'd felt a bit strange yesterday, my stomach protesting at every snack I ate, I had heartburn and was belching all day. The heartburn got worse in the night, plus feeling nauseous and slight diarrhoea. Nigel gave me a ciprofloxacin/antibiotic tablet, apparently a single dose is often enough to stop the bug, it worked for him a few days ago.
We were up early and walking by 7:15. I was feeling a bit rough still but OK to walk. It was a very misty morning, we thought it had been raining during the night but it was just the wet mist drops dripping off the trees. Yesterday I was saying we'd not seen many rocks on the trail as expected for Pennsylvania, we hit them today! The first hour, all rocks. Probably about 75% of the trail was rocky today, our feet were aching and sore by the end of the day.
I got lost this morning. I couldn't see Nigel ahead of me in the mist, my head down walking I missed the white blazes indicating a 90 degree right turn and carried straight on to a massive boulder field. I thought I saw a white blaze on one of the rocks so started climbing across the slippery wet boulders. I got so far then realised there were no more blazes so I must be wrong, in the mist I couldn't see where the trail went. I turned round and climbed back across the rocks. By this time Nigel was shouting for me wondering where I'd gone.
The trail was a bit up and down in the morning then levelled. The woods are definitely turning into a green tunnel now, no more brown. We saw another Eastern Box turtle today on the trail and lots of baby salamanders, 'red eft' Eastern Newts. The mist cleared by midday, we had a small rain shower mid afternoon then some sunny spells. It was still warm and humid though all day. We didn't really stop much today either. The rocks were slowing us down, I was also lacking a bit in energy in the morning, I felt much better by the afternoon. My legs just seemed to be on automatic mode thankfully after 80 days of walking, my mind wasn't so automatic. We stopped for more water with about five miles more to go. The steep descent down to Port Clinton, very steep towards the end.
We arrived in Port Clinton about 5:45.
Walking past a barber shop we got invited in for coffee, he had free coffee and cookies for hikers. We thanked him and said we'd be back in the morning for a haircut, we wanted to get checked in at the Port Clinton hotel, we hadn't made a reservation so we're hoping they had room. They had one room left thankfully so we booked for two nights. We're having another zero tomorrow hoping another rest day will help clear our sickness for good, plus give our feet time to recover from the rocks ready for round two. Its also forecast for rain all day tomorrow, rain and slippery rocks are not a good combination. The trail remains rocky now apparently until we leave Pennsylvania. We showered and had a lovely meal in the hotel restaurant.
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