Youngstown, PA

Greetings from Youngstown, PA!

No, I didn't hike the whole way here, my family came and picked me up, so I'm just resting up. :p I've been here in Pennsylvania for a little over a week now and my foot has gotten MUCH better. I have not gone for an x-ray so my actual foot problem isn't exactly known but I can pretty safely say (from my annoying habit of WebMD-ing everything that happens to me) it's a stress fracture. Eek, if you told me that a while ago I would have cried but I'm way too stubborn to give up on something like my thru-hike.

I'll start back from where I left off-- Damascus, which seems like ages ago. It's strange to look back on Virginia because it seems like it happened in another life. I have this strange habit that when something changes in my life, the past becomes very distant. It's a good thing though, I feel very in-tune with the present moment: I enjoy listening to what people are saying, taking part in what's going on around me and I'm not too occupied with my thoughts that I miss out. I accept everything with a tranquility now, there's no reason to be worried or stressed. I thank the trail and whatever gifts I've been given that I've reached that type of joy, always in my heart. There's just nothing to rush about anymore, it's all happening at it's own beautiful pace.

Okay, I'll get on track, damn I have a bad habit of going off on a stream of thought like that. :p In Damascus, after I got out of the library, I talked to Phil and Fozzie and we decided we would take a zero day in Damascus. It was a very good idea, my foot was bothering me and I found, later on that day, I was having some issues with walking. My body was apprehensive, it didn't want to put any weight onto the second or first metatarsal of my foot so when I would walk, my foot wouldn't pronate. My usual, soft and silent footsteps became a bit lumbering and slow and as we walked through town, I had trouble keeping up with everyone. I got back to "The Place" where I saw the caretaker again--not my favorite person in the world. I forgot to mention that when I first came in, he looked me over and said "well, you don't look like a bum" and I shrugged it off with a laugh and a smile but I still felt a bit at odds with him-- it's just such an odd thing to say to someone that one can't help but harbor a little... hmmm... resentment. I sat around in my room for a little while and Fozzie and Phil came up-- we had the room to ourselves as the two gentlemen in the other bunks were out and wouldn't return until much later that night. A woman brought ice cream and apple cobbler for thru hikers and I ate a little-- saw Bridgette and we talked for a little and she started asking if I was zeroing or not. When I told her yes, she said she was leaving the next day. All I could think was: "interesting."

We talked for a little while more, I didn't exactly flirt, I believe I was still in the state of not having any interest in her and then Fozzie told me in privacy that Bridgette had been asking about me when they first came into town. Nascent love is one of those quick-to-sway (and temporary) things that I soon found myself having a crush on Bridgette again-- not more than half a second after Fozzie told me she had mentioned my name. lol. Ah well, I didn't see her again after that as she took a phone call and was off doing her own thing. Fozzie and Phil were heading off to have some supper so I said I'd join-- you can't miss Dairy King with those fucking prices. Honey badger joined us making us a group of four-- I couldn't help but miss Sam at that moment.

Dairy King wasn't packed, I can't imagine it ever gets too busy aside from Trail days but we sat at the middle table while a Lifetime movie played on the TV. I started wondering whether Fozzie had ever seen a Lifetime movie and if this movie would be particularly terrible and I soon was able to answer those questions with "no" and "YES", respectively. The movie played out as we sat at the diner: a young kid pulls up on a motorcycle to an old man who is standing amidst some ruins that look like the old buildings around Falls Park in Sioux Falls-- they talk for a little while and suddenly the old guy stabs the kid. The old guy hides the body, then another man comes up and starts talking to the old man, old man pulls out his knife and stabs this other guy. Throughout, scenes flash to a woman huddled with her daughter in an orange family tent during a rainstorm, the daughter crying-- they both look terribly anxious and sad about something but I couldn't exactly hear the TV. Somehow, this old man comes along with his knife, gets into the tent and holds the mom with his knife to her throat, I suppose he was going to try to rape her but the daughter acts and stabs him with something. The mom and daughter flee and then they eventually shoot the old guy with a flare gun and he drops into a lake, dead.

This is a standard Lifetime movie.

Fozzie looked on to the movie from time to time and I watched his expressions to see what he thought-- he was fairly amused and I'm sure he was wishing Lifetime were a network in England as well.

The food was good but there were quite a few problems. I ordered water and didn't get any refills, the waitress gave Phil a chicken sandwich instead of chicken tenders and also gave the chicken sandwich to Honeybadger and gave Honeybadger's burger to Phil-- they switched and everything was almost okay. When I payed, I was charged for a drink even though I had water. Let me just say, this is only the beginning of their mistakes, we had breakfast and dinner the next day at Dairy King and it was even more skewed.

We got back from the diner and started to throw a Frisbee for a while-- my foot wasn't acting up, it was perfectly fine at this point so I was sprinting all over the place in the yard outside of "The Place." It was mainly Phil and I tossing the frisbee and we did so for at least 2 hours-- Fozzie joined in now and then, Mary Poppins and Bridgette for a while too but it eventually got dark and we had to call it a night. I had a ton of fun though and thought I'd be played out and ready to go to sleep but the hard beds in The Place mixed with the sound from my sleeping pad when I got up or made any move (sounded like a dog walking on a placemat) made it so that I couldn't sleep. After an hour of tossing and turning, I decided to go to the kitchen in The Place and make some tea. Honeybadger, Mary Poppins and a girl were playing Rummy 500 and I eventually joined in with them-- the game went on for a few hours and didn't end until the unfortunate hour of 1am. Time flies when you're playing cards. At some point, a very drunk man came in and had to be escorted upstairs with the help of two folks (one in back and one behind so he wouldn't fall) and everyone proceeded to tell me that he had paid everyone's tab at the bar (the bill was somewhere around 540$). I asked if he was fully conscious of paying everyone's tab and they told me "maybe."

I went back up to sleep after 1am, aware I'd be very tired the next day and I still didn't sleep well. The Place just wasn't very comfortable. When I did wake up the next morning, I waited around for everyone else to be ready to go and it took too long so I decided to waste some time with a shower (took one the night before). I can't get very clean in most of the showers on the trail so I just did my best and decided I'd be ready to go-- nobody was awake yet so I sat around in the kitchen for a bit, finished charging my phone and then Fozzie was up and asked if I'd go to breakfast with him and Phil-- I had to say yes, of course-- can't miss breakfast with an Englishman. :P

I can't remember what I had for breakfast but my breakfast came out okay-- when the others took the chance of ordering, the odds weren't in their favor. Fozzie had ordered two eggs and only got one (but he got two pancakes when he only ordered one) and they forgot the side of home fries he had ordered. On top of that, when Phil was being charged, they tried to have him pay Fozzie's bill instead of his own (which wasn't of equal price). My foot wasn't feeling great that day, I had a hard time keeping pace with everyone as they went about on their business. I took some time to go to Mt. Roger's outfitter and stand around for a while and went on to do the same with the other two outfitters that were in the town-- nothing really struck me as something worth buying and I didn't need anything in the first place. I don't know how I wasted my time from then on that day other than resupplying at a grocery store but I did a great job of it. I will say that much of my time was spent lounging about in the bunkroom-- I never napped but I did manage to do very little (suppose I just wanted to rest). Chez 11 came in and stayed on the bunk above me, around dinnertime, we met up with Tripping Yeti who had left the day before and found that the O-ring on his gas stove had busted so he came back to get it replaced-- the poor guy trudged quite a few miles. We went with tripping yeti to the diner (Fozzie, Honey Badger and Phil joining me again) for supper and they proceeded to screw up orders again. The best thing was that TY had ordered Sierra Mist and the waitress refilled it with water-- I noticed this but didn't say anything in case he noticed or was fine with it-- he didn't, so when he took a sip through his straw, he made a sudden snorting noise which made me bust out laughing. I wound up ordering twice because I was helluva hungry and my tab only wound up being 12$ (and I ate a ton, I don't know how they gauge their prices) and as the waitress was typing in my order, she accidentally typed 1,277$ and was ready to swipe my card. She corrected it and everything was fine but DAMN the screw ups.

When we got back, Phil, Fozzie, Chez and I all chatted about the trail and lounged about-- I had extremely bad gas and Chez had to smell it all the time and eventually it drifted over to the other guys who threatened to kill me. I soon decided I'd leave the room every time I farted, which was often and though the hall was busy, nobody seemed to notice, or at least complain. Fozzie showed me raspberry M&M's he found at one of the grocery stores we resupplied at, I had a few and was in heaven. After some time, we all fell asleep and were ready to go the next day.

My foot was feeling pretty good, I lit out around 8:45am and decided I'd stop at Subway. Unfortunately, Subway wouldn't open until 10am but I decided to wait around for it anyways seeing as I didn't want to go for breakfast at a gas station. Fozzie came about soon after and sat with me until 9:45-- he got espresso at a nearby coffee place and I had a sip of it (it was my first espresso, pretty good). A section hiker came by and sat with us-- a fellow in overalls with a service dog and he talked about the trail for a little and how some of his friends had stolen money from him. Eventually, Fozzie lit out and Subway soon opened-- I decided to try their smokehouse BBQ chicken sandwich and I loved every minute of it. I always get a footlong sandwich with the intent to take half of it for later-- I always wind up eating the whole damn thing. I was walking to the trail soon after, basking in the beautiful morning sunlight when I spotted an ice cream shop that had Hershey's ice cream. I went to the door and there were workers inside but the door was locked-- I stood there and knocked and eventually one came over and let me in-- they had just forgotten to unlock the door.

I decided on an ice cream flavor-- sampled the superman flavor (which was strawberry, vanilla and something blue) and it tasted like shit-- I wound up going with chocolate chip cookie dough and caramel. I got a waffle cone, ate it on the deck and smiled the whole time. After that, I was onward.

I'll stop here for now-- I don't want a super long post!