One night in Lickdale.

What do you do when you're writing something and fate gives you these:

I slept in Lickdale last night.
And...
There's a place called "McQueen's Knob"

Do you keep it quiet? Yes they are jokes, but if you can't keep up with 18th century geographers do you really have a place being funny on the internet?

I have decided that I don't have the right to keep this gold from you, even if the rest of this post lives far from the center of Lickdale, forever in the shadow of McQueen's promontory, the jokes must flow.

The couple of days in NY took their toll.

If you don't train, you atrophy. There were times where, with only eight drunkards shouting at each other, I had to concentrate to force a fifteen minute anecdote into conversation.

I've lost a step.

You close a couple bars, a small house party, 11 hours driving, and you're not even fit to hike.

The two days out of New York left me emotionally refreshed, if slightly physically drained. I took it easy, slowly returning to my previous pace.

The sudden withdrawal of stimulus was a bit of a shock, to go from sitting in a circle of almost 40 years of friendship to sitting alone on a cliff face, sun setting, miles from the nearest mind was an adjustment, and not an easy one.

As if to emphasize the difference between NY and the trail I've dropped into a less populated bubble as I go along. I've camped alone a couple of nightsand the silence and space, particularly after the city, swings from boring to exhilarating and back again, like my adrenal system doesn't know what to do with it.

I'm keeping good pace since Harper's Ferry, West Virginia and Maryland have been dealt with and I'm more than halfway through Pennsylvania.

Someone said to me today we've less than 999 miles to go, the odometer rolled ovee a few miles back and I didn't notice.

When you pass halfway you've less to do than you've already done, I realize that's excruciatingly prosaic, but until our destination was only three digits away it hadn't registered.

I should say more about the traditions that accompany getting past halfway, or the changes in gear that happen when summer, and the bugs, arrive. But if I try and write all that, this'll never be sent and you'll think I'm still lost somewhere off Broadway.

While the trail's end is not yet in sight, I'm beginning to believe it exists.

Finally, to those I missed in NY. I was there to celebrate someone else, my attendance was the gift, not the point, staying below radar was the thing to do. I'll be back when I walk a little closer to the city and you better believe it will be heralded, and there will be a party!

Goodnight my friends, I miss you all.
T.