What a Difference a State Makes

Ahhhhh. New Jersey. Beautiful, sweet, lovely New Jersey. I know I said some harsh words about her last week but I take them all back. The Trail is so nice here and mostly because we are starting to see the rocks dissipate as we get farther from Pennsylvania. There are also a lot of beautiful ponds and lakes to sit by and take a break.

We had a productive but restful zero day in Delaware Water Gap. There was everything that we needed to resupply and do laundry nearby but the highlight of this sweet town was the bakery down the street from our hotel. We each went there at least four times and sampled just about everything they had on the menu. The crowd favorite was the $2.95 hot dog and apple pie combo special and their sign was so darn cute.

I left town early and it was a perfect day for hiking. Dry and cool with bright sunshine. As much as I enjoyed the rest I was so ready to get back into the woods. I could feel my body relax as I made that first climb out of town. I stopped by a few of the lakes and enjoyed the views. I didn’t see many critters but Fire ran into a pretty good sized rattlesnake.

The group is intentionally scattered a bit today. Astronaut and Jellyfish are hiking a few days with a local friend. The other guys went ahead to check out an”secret shelter.” NC’Ice and I decided that we wanted to check out New Jersey’s largest waterfall so we camped at a nice spot 20 miles from town and then hiked a pretty steep section down to the falls. The falls were just okay but the best part was standing in the ice cold water to rest our feet and legs. When we got back up to our campsite the sunset was a deep orange on the horizon.

It should be a great quiet night. Unfortunately, I accidentally sent home my sleeping pad with my winter clothes so it will be a few nights of old fashioned leaves for cushions for me until I can get to an outfitter. 😬 Good news is that we are getting into the “Deli Blazing” section for the Trail soon and we hit our first one tomorrow morning. Hiker hunger is stronger than ever and we are going to hit as many of these great delis as we can. We are all going to meet back up tomorrow and then we will have just three more days until we cross the border into New York.