Sunday, July 10, 2011

Day 95 - 4th July Alec Kennedy Shelter to Darlington Shelter - 18.3 miles

A special holiday today in the US. We could hear the firecrackers last night from our campsite. It is a really hot day. By the river it feels cold, until we climb the hill and are soon sweating in the warm air on top. It is a fast 6 miles into Boiling Springs. This is a beautiful old town with stone buildings and a lake. The community are setting up for a big festival to celebrate the 4th July. We stop for breakfast at Caffe 101 opposite the tavern and have a fantastic meal.

On full stomachs we walk another 12 miles across the Cumberland Valley, without stopping. It is a flat valley full of farms and freeways - there are no campsites. The sun beats down on us.We walk through cornfields and some forest. We discover two lots of trail magic left for hikers - eskies full of ice and cold soft drinks. We find an old cemetery which is abandoned and overgrown. We climb bridges over freeways. Altogether we count 15 road crossings that we have to negotiate.

At 2.30 in the heat of the day we stop at the Susquehenna River for an hour and a half and swim and rest. We still 1000 ft to climb to the shelter to camp, and we decide to do it after 4pm. We meet two hikers - Swift and Tiger Lily at the river and they also camp with us at the shelter.

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