Day 89 – Meetings and Recovery

Unplanned day zero in Hamburg, PA today. Getting out of bed this morning was a challenge, as I quickly discovered that my body had some aches and pains from yesterday’s fall. Especially in the left ankle, which seems to be more bruised than previously thought. Fortunately, my stitched right leg has very little pain associated with it, as long as you don’t directly impact the wound. I still feel very foolish and lucky from my fall yesterday.

Meetings

At the hotel I went down to have breakfast and find accommodation to do laundry and found a gathering of giant hikers waiting for me. Many of my friends that I previously hiked with and/or stayed at the condo with were all here. Fozzy, Four Score, MasterChef, Fuego, Dreamer, Bushwack and Tagalong. It’s always fun to see those guys. I’m glad to see that they are a little ahead of me and I should bump into them again in the future. Like a local bar at Beersgiving, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, you never know who you’ll run into along the Appalachian Trail! MasterChef even gave me some leftover food they had before heading back to the trail, which was very nice of them.

After grabbing something to eat and catching up with them for a bit, I worked on taking out the dirty clothes, re-bandaging my leg, which looked good, and packing my bag to leave the room before paying. Unfortunately, the Microtel was sold out tonight and we were going to have to find a spot further away from the trail.

away from home

After checking out of the hotel, I tried to take an Uber or Lyft to Cabela’s, about a mile away, but no luck. So I walked there, crossed a couple of busy intersections, and arrived about 20 minutes later. This is where I met up with Shooter, Big Stick, Fritoes and Birdie. We wanted to meet here not only because Cabela’s has some hiking-related items, but also because this is the largest Cabela’s in the world!

It was certainly big, but it didn’t seem much bigger than a regular Cabela’s. Since I didn’t need anything at the time, I just went to the aquariums to look at the fish. Shortly after we went out for lunch at Red Robin down the street, which was great for a big burger and bottomless fries!

After Red Robin we headed to Cigars International for some drinks and cigars. We had a great time cutting it while sitting in the air conditioning, drink in hand.

After an hour, we had some tasks to take care of, mainly restocking at Walmart. After stocking up on what we needed, we tried to get a ride to our hotel 15 miles away, but we couldn’t get it through ride-sharing services. So we called Zoom-Zoom again to see if it could help us, and it could!

30 minutes later, he picked us up and took us to our hotel, where they began their cycle of showers and laundry before heading back downstairs. Queso and his parents were at the same hotel and treated us to pizza and pastries for dinner! How kind of them! After socializing for a bit, he went to bed. Tired and sore but a great day!

Statistics for day 89:

0 miles

0′ rise, 0′ fall

Hotel Microtel to Residence Inn

35 DSLC…

Stove use times: 14

Tracker of whole pizzas consumed: 13

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