It wasn’t really much cooler and I still didn’t sleep well. All my stuff was smelling particularly bad and it was hot inside the tent. The best use for a sleeping bag is as a blanket, but even that feels too hot because it just kind of sticks to skin. I was sure glad I was only going to be doing 12 miles into town.
The weather this morning was ideal walking weather though. I think I actually felt a cool breeze for the first time in weeks, and the air was drier too. There was a kind of mini-roller coaster toward the end of the day with about four ups and downs. The first hill features “the rock maze” a nice 1/2 mile or so peak with boulder formations requiring walking through, over, between, and around. Kind of neat, but still more rocks. It’s a good thing those three days off really allowed my feet to heal and toughen up, Rocksylvania does give them a beating.
The last 1.5 miles today was down from the mountains and into Pennsylvania farm country. This stretch preceding Boiling Springs was nothing but corn fields – the trail paralleled the edge of several of them, taking right angle turns North or East at the corners until arriving in town. All the while the sun was out, it wasn’t even noon yet, the air was probably about 70 degrees, and puffy white clouds dotted the sky. One of the nicest days in quite a while.
Town was nice too, I had a good bleu cheese burger at the Boiling Springs Tavern, then went up the road to the Allenberry Resort and Playhouse. The rooms are normally over $100 but there’s a hiker deal – $40 a night. Even met Munchies Matt between lunch and here and although he doesnt usually do hotels, we decided to split a room – he liked the sound of a pool/spa. Oddly he’s still sleeping on his sleeping pad on the floor of the room instead of the bed. Apparently there was a bad experience with bed bugs in Waynesboro. I just sat around most of the afternoon planning the coming days, debating whether I should keep up the big mileage or kind of revert back to the 15/day plan. I think at least for now I’m going to slow down slightly and do a few easy days.