Day 83: Onto NJ!

Day 83, 7/20/23

Tentsite to Tentsite

21.2 miles, mile 1,311.9

We woke up around 6:30 a.m. and got hiking at 7:30 a.m. I had an iced vanilla latte with whole milk on my mind and we made it the six miles to town in exactly two hours. The Mystical Mug was a very cute coffee shop right near the trail and I plugged my phone in and enjoyed my latte. Kev got an iced tea and a BLT on a bagel. We hung out here for about two hours and then made our way over to a restaurant in town that supposedly had a gluten free menu. They did and there were sweet potato fries on it, but I still felt like I should ask the usual question of if it is a shared fryer. I was expecting the answer to be no because they were on the gluten free menu, but she said it is a shared fryer. This is really frustrating for people with Celiac because a shared fryer means an item is not gluten free. I asked for a side salad instead with my philly steak sandwich. It was really good, but for how pathetically small gluten free buns are, I thought it was a bit pricey for what I got. However, it certainly beats tuna out of a bag.

After lunch we hit the trail again because it was almost 1:00 p.m. and we still had 15 miles to hike. Shortly into the afternoon we hit the PA/NJ state line over the Delaware River. The bridge was quite busy with traffic and was therefore very shaky. The trail was following the road for a bit after and was flat until we got to the trailhead parking and had a decent climb out of Delaware Water Gap. There was a creek that we dunked into beforehand, a lake up at the top we swam in, and then another pond later on that we swam in again. I’m impressed we spent almost three hours in town, went swimming three times, and still managed to hike 21 miles and get to camp around 7:30 p.m. The water source before this tent site was a beaver pond, and we saw mr. beaver swimming around. The water was very warm, and tastes very bad but we didn’t have another choice so it will have to do.

Apparently there is high bear activity in NJ so I hope we don’t have any visitors tonight. Per usual, our food is hung in a great PCT hang. I am beyond excited to see Mom and Ethan tomorrow and take a shower. It will be eight days tomorrow – gross, I know. I am very happy to be out of PA, and proud that I have hiked over 1,300 miles!