How Red Knees managed to consume a chicken Caesar salad shortly after a half gallon of chocolate-peanut butter swirl ice cream still completely eludes me but he somehow managed to struggle through it. When we finished our meal, 2pac's dad, Mickey, and his comrade from college, Skip, drove us back down to the trailhead for a few more miles of slack pack.
After 26 miles the previous day and 5 miles that morning (where, mind you, I made the mistake of not using the privy in the morning in favor of making it to a place with indoor plumbing...almost a disastrous decision), we were exhausted and in no mood to hike. We pushed on, however, through simple terrain to put us at a total of 14 miles for the day - not shabby all things considered.
When we arrived at the road crossing, Papa 2pac was there, like an angel sent from the heavens, with a 6 pack of Yeungling and several bags of chips. We chatted on the ride back to the hotel and figured out our plans for the following days. That evening we dined at the Boiling Springs Tavern with Skip, his wife, and two of their friends. If we hadn't been so astronomically exhausted we could've made quite the night out of it but by 10:00pm I could barely hold my head up much less carry on intelligent (or even marginally comprehensible) conversation.
This morning we awoke relatively late by hiker standards (around 8:00am) and prepared to head into Gettysburg to spend time exploring the museum and battlefields. A few days prior I had spoken on the phone with my brother and father where they, the history buffs that they are, had bombarded me with requests for pictures of Little Round Top and spewed stories at me of the 2nd Maine and their heroic stand on that defensive position (we learned today that it was in fact the 20th, not the 2nd. Way to go, pops).
Gettysburg was amazing. Having the opportunity to be walked, step by step, through the battles on those fateful first days of July, 1863 was inspirational, even more so when you realized what this battle ultimately meant for so many. For me it was an eye opening experience about the trail: the Confederate troops had walked into Pennsylvania over the Blue Ridge, essentially an identical path that we had taken up to where we were now. For so many others it was a signifier of the turn of momentum in the war and a symbol of unity and freedom.
Hands down, Gettysburg has more monuments than the entirety of Washington, D.C. Perhaps not all quite as grand, but each division has a monument in the location at which they were stationed, dedicated to those soldiers who were hurt or wounded in that battle (a grand total of 51,000). It was nothing short of fantastic.
After venturing to many monuments and, for my families sake, getting the obligatory picture atop Little Round Top, we headed to the Appalachian Brewing Company for lunch. All the beers that we sampled there were fantastic and the food was excellent to boot.
I was exhausted. Who knew being a tourist was so tiring. Somewhere between sleep and awake I managed to buy a new pair of shorts for the trail, resupply and write postcards to several of my dear friends back home. I apologize in advance if my writing is at all illegible or nonsensical.
Around 6:30pm we headed back to Skip's for dinner and good company and boy was it. We sat on the porch of his 18th century two family row house (that has since been masterfully converted to a single home with diametrically opposing personalities when viewed from the outside), drinking wine and sharing stories. We eventually moved to the tavern, a small building just out the back of his home, and continued to chat and enjoy delectable barbecue until well after the sun had set.
It was a great evening and now, well after hiker midnight, as I write with quite literally one eye open, it is time to retire and begin to dream of the miles that will be covered in the coming days.
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