Our unexpectedly long day on Wednesday searching for water meant we had even less than the short mileage we had first planned for today to reach a road and a shuttle back to Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, where X’s sisters will swing by tomorrow, pick us up, and carry us to the Catskills. So, less than two hours after we start this morning, we are sitting on the Hiker Bench (we think we qualify!) outside “Joe to Go” having breakfast sandwiches, and ready to call it a day, a week, and a wedding…

We note as we take our first (and hopefully only) multiple-days-off break, we have now completed 60.3% of the Appalachian Trail, and done it in 53.3% of our allotted six-month time period. However, after these upcoming two zeroes and two neroes, we predict our yesterday’s average mileage for the trip so far will not be reached again before the end.

If conventional wisdom holds, and the last 20% of the AT requires 80% of the whole trip’s energy, when we start again on Sunday, we will be just a little over 400 miles from the meat of our journey…

While on the bench, we are joined by several other hikers from last night at the Brink Road Shelter. Moon Watcher, who needs to resupply, goes in for coffee and determines he needs to hitch to the east. A self-styled hitch hike expert, he pulls out his smiley face sign, pulls off his hat and sunglasses, and goes to work, predicting that at this tough location (very busy, very fast traffic), it will take him 12 minutes to catch a ride. Expert he must be, as he is gone to town within eight…