10-18-12

AT miles hiked today: 3.9
Total AT miles hiked: 1659.8
Miles to complete my thruhike: 524.4

I'm in the Alec Kennedy Shelter with several others, including Stonewall, and The Boyfriend. The others are section hikers and several are tenting. It's supposed to rain tonight, and get cold, and then warm up again. Hopefully the weather will be okay to Harpers Ferry.

Neil and Vicky, trail angels, bought us breakfast and got me excited about turning this blog into a book. She is not a hiker, but loved hearing my stories and said she would read my book. The Allenberry is wonderful to be so welcoming to hikers. We got a great deal on the room and a wonderful breakfast buffet for $6 and checkout isn't until noon.

It is very hard to leave a warm and dry room, with a hot shower and flush toilet, especially when it's a good deal and it's going to rain outside. It's even harder when it is already raining. Luckily, it wasn't raining yet, so we escaped the town vortex, which is getting stronger the colder it gets outside. This last few hundred miles may be more difficult than I thought. We got stuck at the ATC building here in Boiling Springs, which had water and let us use the bathroom plus there is a table out front and a hiker box. There was a piece of green flint on the desk and I asked about it. Turns out it is slag from the iron smelting. My blue and green "flint" is really slag. That's actually cool, too.