It was nice having a day out of town that didn’t include big mileage – Landon, Miranda, and I didn’t leave Duncannon until after 2pm. Pretty sure that’s the latest I’ve started hiking so far. The morning began with about a mile long backtrack into the main part of town to have breakfast. We ate at a little local diner and there was something on the menu none of us had heard of before – Texas pancakes. We all thought we knew what we were getting but we asked the waitress what Texas pancakes were and after we found out all three of us included them in our order. What a Texas pancake is is a big slice of Texas Toast dipped in pancake batter, then dipped in egg (like French toast) then fried. They were amazing. Perhaps the second best breakfast so far topped only by Mary’s French Toast etc. back in Roan Mountain. After breakfast we lingered around town taking care of stuff like laundry, mailing things home, etc and then eventually made it back to Tinman’s place to grab our packs and head out across the river and back into the woods.
Of course not long after we were underway the rain started back up. We had seen a few days of blue sky but the gray is back and looks like it will be for a while. I guess the rocks of Pennsylvania took a while to get going but now they are present in full force, and they are even more fun when wet. They still haven’t seemed to bother me as much as most people though. My problems lie elsewhere, the new frame for my backpack that I only got a few hundred miles ago has already cracked in much the same way the original one had. And all the cracks are on the side where my shoulder gets sore so it looks like I will be looking into switching to a new pack pretty quickly. As usual the actual hiking in the rain was pretty fun and refreshing, the lingering dampness of clothes and gear is not as pleasant.