Day 5 – Maryland is finished

We stopped a mere half of a mile from Pennsylvania yesterday to resupply in Cascade, MD.  We had a nice room in a private house with a fantastic breakfast that was within walking distance to a small town grocery.  We now have food for four more days of travel.  We also were able to walk one block for our first pizza of the trip and it was fantastic.  Yankee pizza does not disappoint.  We packed out three slices for lunch and it was just as good.

It was just a quick jaunt to the Mason Dixon line where we entered PA in overcast weather.  The weather never changed all day.  Late in the day around 4 PM we actually saw shadows on the ground for about fifteen seconds but that was it.

The terrain was good for much of the hike.  We keep building miles each day as we grow stronger and today was just over fifteen miles.  Karen is getting faster on the uphills but still hates them and is almost up to her normal speed on the flats.  Pretty soon we will be able to plan on fifteen to twenty miles as a typical days schedule.

Because of the weather we did not see or hear much wildlife today.  There were a few vistas but the weather was good enough only at one of them which was a pretty harrowing boulder scramble and Karen stayed at the base of that one but I went to see the view which was nice but completely forested.

We are staying in a shelter tonight because it is supposed to start raining about midnight and not stop until at least noon.

We had to break camp in the rain the other day and the tarps are still wet from that adventure and we don’t want to have to pack in the rain if we can avoid it.  Hiking in it is bad enough.  We are not sure where our destination is tomorrow so we will just play it by ear and see where we end up if the weather lets up.  The shelters have been very nice in southern PA so far so we are hopeful that we will find a nice place to stop.