June 4 - 14.5 / 1,059.7

The summary for this day was laziness. Knowing that we had two days to hike some 27-28 miles, we were not to rushed to get out of camp. We still left around 7:30 though.

We got to the first shelter, 5 miles in, in pretty good time. We could hear some voices coming from the side trail so we thought we should go check it out. It was a few other thru hikers. Next thing we know we had our packs off and joined them in conversation. We stuck around for about 1.5 hours before moving on.

We hike another 5 miles to Pen Mar County Park. Captain Radish and Rifka were leaving as we arrived. Also there were a few hundred elementary school kids. We sat at a picnic table and soon decided to order food from a local restaurant. My guide book said they delivered to the park. We got the one pizza, ten wings, one liter drink special. It arrived 20 minutes later. We spent the next few hours eating and watching the kids run around the park. I followed that up with a nap, and DS went around and read about the history of the park. After sitting there for almost 4 hours we decided that we should probably hike the last 4.5 miles for the day.

After leaving the park, we crossed over the Mason Dixon line and into Pennsylvania.

We could hear thunder in the distance that was definitely coming towards us. Well, we got to experience that thunder and lightning about 2 miles later. Luckily, we got to a low point on the trail and set up the fly to DS's hammock in approximately 30 seconds. We dove up it and sat out the downpour for the next 30 minutes. We were dry, and that is all that mattered.

We hiked the last 2.5 miles to the shelter. Also here for the evening are Captain Radish and Rifka, The Count (a section hiker), and two other section hikers. We all enjoyed a good meal and socialization.

I forgot to mention I got some trail magic yesterday: a lemon lime soft drink and some pretzels. They were in a cooler beside a house the trail passed.