Michaux - Misho - Mushy

well, whilst Gustov pummeled the eastern seaboard, we decided to take a backpacking expedition along the Appalachian Trail where it passes through Michaux State Forest in southern PA, just outside of Gettysburg. Albeit a comparatively short hike, i'm quite impressed with myself for enduring 6 or 7 miles of hiking in ceaseless rain, sleeping the night at one of the Appalachian Trails many shelters along the route, and hiking 7 miles back out (for, yes, my endurance sucks). The rain allowed us a relative aloneness until we reached the shelter; a nice break from the slow but busy psuedo-urbia of two lane highways with no passing zones and low speed limits full of naught but old people and cumbersome drivers. Having prepared our upper halves well for the rain, we were a bit unprepared for how much cotton cargo pants soak up water, and subsequently our otherwise water-proof hiking boots, which held all the water in quite nicely.

The stars beat out the rain some time around sunset, and there was no dry wood for a fire, but we did get our own shelter, and it was one of the most uncomfortable nights of sleep i've ever had; the pants and socks were still damp when we got dressed again, despite having been hung up overnight and even dangled over the gas stove, but were nicely dry after 2 hours of sunfilled hicking -- so a dry ride home we had, at the very least.

We didn't take the cameras with us... it's just green, green, and more green... like some fairy puked on everything. But the leaves, I hear, are set to be changing soon, so we'll have another trip up north-ish and will likely be taking lots of pictures.