I'm backkkkkkk!

Hi everybody!

Sorry for the delay, I haven't had access to a computer for a while. 

SO LETS RECAP.  Last time I blogged was when I was in Boiling Springs, PA.  It was a beautiful little town right at the start of Pennsylvania.  Little did I know that Pennsylvania would turn out to be the crappiest part of the trail.  There are a few major factors as to why Pennsylvania sucks ass, which I will gladly explain below.  Just take my word now, if you plan on hiking some part of the A.T, DO NOT CHOOSE TO DO YOUR SECTION IN PENNSYLVANIA!!!

1.  It's boring as shit.
  
Seriously, there is nothing to look at in Pennsylvania.  It is just flat, boring woods all of the way through.  Let me give you an example from our guidebook.  Here is an example of some of the stuff we walked through in North Carolina.

So this picture shows you the type of terrain we walked through over a course of 20 miles in North Carolina.  As you can see, we were walking at high elevations (5000+ feet) and going up and down some pretty steep stuff.  High elevations and steep inclines/declines make for some awesome sites.  You can even see a little camera icon on this page above, which signifies a nice vista that you can take a good picture at.

Now, let me show you what a page looks like out of Pennsylvania.

WOMP WOMP.  It is completely flat, and you are at less than 2000 feet the whole time.  That means you are just walking through trees nonstop.  They nickname the A.T "The Green Tunnel", and I am pretty sure its due to Pennsylvania being so lame.

When I researched the A.T, everyone talks about hikers getting the "Virginia Blues".  This is the time where you have been hiking for about a month or so, and hikers start to get bored of the terrain (or just bored of hiking) in Virginia, and they quit.  That saying is dumb.  Virginia was pretty kickass in my opinion.  Things didn't start sucking until Pennsylvania. They should ditch the Virginia Blues saying and go ahead and stick with "The Pennsylvania Depression".  I am in the process of trademarking that.

2.  The terrain sucks.
 
Now, on top of Pennsylvania being really flat, it is ROCKY ROCKY ROCKY.  So many rocks.  Seriously, like nonstop rocks all the way through Pennsylvania.  I heard about it being bad, but I had no idea it would be this bad.

ROCKS

 ROCKS

 OH hey, an actual view in Pennsylvania.  But look at what I had to climb up to take this picture.

INTENSE STEEP ROCKS!

Rocks suck.

3.  It was incredibly hot

  We hiked through Pennsylvania during an intense heat wave.  Probably 5 straight days in the mid 90s, which is NO FUN.  Simple hills become incredibly tiresome due to the heat.  You become drenched in your own sweat.  You gotta chug water constantly, which is hard because when the land is so flat, springs and streams are a rarity.

Not sure if you can tell from the pic, but my shorts and legs are drenched in sweat.

Also, heat waves are a PERFECT time for insects to come out and bother you.  It was not uncommon for us to have about 75 flies swarming around us while hiking.  They are rather annoying, but I was able to tune them out fairly well.  They mostly just hover around your body and face, but they usually won't land on you.  I think its amazing how well they can just hover in front of your body while you walk.  There were times where I was swatting my hands across my body and hitting at least 30 bugs at a time.

4.  The trail was not maintained at all

There was a bunch of thorns and overgrowth that appeared on the trail that stabbed you while you walked, and it could rip and tear your clothing/gear.  That kind of upset me, but I can't get too upset.  I mean, trail maintenance is done all by volunteers.  And most volunteers are old farts who are retired and have nothing else to do.  Why would these old people want to go to the crappiest/rockiest part of the trail, and help maintain it?  I sure as hell wouldn't, so I'll let that one slide.

OK, I will stop my bitching now.

As soon as you get out of Pennsylvania, there is a nice river you could take a swim in.  Me and Simba took advantage of that!

Simba mean muggin in the river.

It's a tough life we live.

Purdy mountains with a sunset.

We got to walk straight up to this monument.  I can't remember what it was called but its basically like the Washington monument.  It's a cool feeling walking up to something like that.

 This was a cool shelter.

Here are my brand new Superfeet insoles, and my old ones that have 1200+ miles on them.

Here is a cool mile long boardwalk out in New Jersey.  Would have been a little more enjoyable if it wasn't 95 degrees out!

 Yeah...'MERICA!!  I love the clouds in this picture, so beautiful.  I have noticed that New York and Connecticut have had beauuuutiful clouds.

Oh hey, I made it to NYC!  So one of the hikers on the trail lives in Connecticut, and he offered us a place to stay, and a train ride into NYC, so we took a day to explore.  It was pretty cool.  Lots of people, and lots of expensive stuff to buy....Yay..?  It reminded me of Chicago, only like 3x bigger.

Cool perspective of the new Freedom Tower.  Remember kids, FREEDOM AIN'T FREE!

They could hardly tell we were tourists!

Bridge!

Pretty view over the bridge.  This was like the perfect weather.  About 78 degrees and really breezy.

BIG TREE!

Sometimes you just gotta look straight up to see some cool stuff.

Waterfalls.

 Dopeee.

Sometimes we gotta climb some REAL TOUGH STUFF!

Senior photo style 1500 miles!

We walked along a ridge to this site for maybe a quarter mile.  That was sweeet.

I can't get enough of these clouds!


Alright everyone, I hope this was enough pictures to make up for the month I didn't update my blog.  I have less than two months till I finish this!  It is exciting, and yet sad that this amazing journey is coming to an end soon.  But, I am sure I will keep you guys posted soon, we just entered into Massachusetts, and we only have Mass, Vermont, New Hampshire, and MAINE LEFT!  And, everyone tells me that everything after Vermont is aaawwwwwesome so I can't wait!

Also, I have to mention that we are unfortunately no longer hiking with Bobsled.  She got off of the trail as soon as we hit New York because she has to go back to school to finish up her dietetics program.

We miss you Bobby!


OK, I am for realsies done now.

Ciao ciao ciao ciao

Lighthouse.