Day 25: Zero at Bert’s

Summary

May 20th

Bert’s Restaurant and Hostel

Zero; no changes

Today was pretty low key. Good breakfast at Bert’s (I got the stuffed French toast). We had a little more time to catch up with Half-Blind and Bangles at the restaurant before they left to get back on the trail. 

It was raining by the time we finished, so we grabbed our rain gear to walk on down to the grocery store. The big dietary changes are a foray into Ramen noodles (gonna try to make a Asian peanut noodle thingy), and adding back cheese and pepperoni for lunches. Also picked up some Kind bars for afternoon energy. Also picked up Cracker Jacks and a chocolate milk to snack on today.  The folks at the market recognized my food choices as those of an AT hiker, and, according to their policy, gave me a free apple. Pretty cool; they are very hiker friendly in Palmerton. 

Then I made a run to DDs for an ice coffee, and went back to the hostel to sort and repackage the food. Ended up with another heavy food bag. <sigh>  

We visited a lot with a 25 year old SOBO hiker named Gritz from NY state, I think. A young man with a strong opinion and confidence to express himself. He was fun to talk to…

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon sitting with my guitar; I’m getting used to the feel of this odd instrument. Later today I did discover a small crack in the side; got to think about a way to stabilize it. It doesn’t negatively impact the tone. In fact I was actually thinking the guitar had better sustain than I remembered it having…

After a huge dinner we walked with our dessert milkshakes down to the carnival in the town park, before coming back to meet our two new bunk mates, Hong Kong Phooey and Dory, SOBOers three weeks into there own version of a flip-flop. 

So tomorrow we head back onto the trail, our next town stop will be Delaware Water Gap, which ends up the PA portion and starts the NJ section. Hops is having a new pack sent to him there to replace his pack with a damaged shoulder strap (REI is cool), and it is where Paria will send me a replacement trekking pole, as well (Paria is cool, too!!!).