Today was a red-letter day with us reaching our eighth state and going under 900 miles remaining (although saying “only 900 to go” does not exactly make it sound short to us). We’d had a problem with getting new shoes from our regular outfitters and decided we could wait no longer (our pairs #2 now each had 800 miles on them!). So, we planned a si- mile walk down into Delaware Water Gap; shopping, eating, and small scale re-supply; and a five mile gentle climb back up to the first campsite listed with water. [That would leave us one long day and one short day before our three-day break for the wedding.]

As usual, approaching a major road was noisy, but we did have nice views down to the Delaware River. We walked through town for a late breakfast at the diner. N had visualized ordering something else on his walk down, but his sense of reason was overcome by the menu’s picture of the Belgian Waffle Sundae, which when it arrived had four times more ice cream than shown! Thank goodness there was some time to digest it before the next climb!

The outfitter’s shoe inventory was low at the end of this busy hiker season, but we each were able to walk out with new shoes in our size (which by the way is still the same: European 42 1/2). We immediately noticed a difference in foot comfort and stability. We also arranged a shuttle for Thursday for the first leg of our trip from the AT to the Catskills.

We walked across the Delaware River bridge into New Jersey and made a brief stop at the NPS Visitor Center. At first the AT followed a wide smooth gentle road and only got Pennsylvania rock-like near the top. We reached the campsite about 4:00 p.m., and liked everything about it, except the color of the water (clear but a bit brown from tannic acid), but the nice open view to the west made up for it. We finished dinner and camp chores by 7:00 (including the luxury of using bear boxes for food protection!), and crawled in the tent shortly thereafter. There was just enough early rain shower to require the tent fly. The campsite is quite spread out, which we appreciate when the group of girl scouts arrive. We hope their version of Hiker Midnight is close to ours.