7/13/12 – 1252 miles
The trail led an easy 7 miles into Palmerton, PA, a nice but sad little town along the Lehigh River. I’ll touch briefly on the story of Palmerton in the next post, but on this day we were busy with town chores and meeting several new hikers.
The neat thing about Palmerton is that you get to sleep in the jail. I guess way back in earlier times, the building that now serves as hostel for thruhikers used to be a jail. It has since been remodeled and the basement turned onto a dormitory with bunk beds for hikers. They give thruhikers a place to stay and a shower all for free. It turned into a fun time in town as more hikers showed up throughout the day. By bedtime there were about 15 hikers all sharing the basement hostel. When you get a group of thruhikers all together, all sharing the same adventure, living the same dream, going through the same hardships of daily hiking, the common bond forms instant friendships.
It seems like I’ve fallen into a different group of hikers in the last couple of weeks. When several people hike about the same pace, meet up at the same place each night, and go into the same towns to resupply, we call the group a bubble. I’m in a bubble now. It’s good to have other thruhikers around.
I’m sure most people, like me, thought that you had been picked up for vagrancy or something!
Great! Not only is my dad homeless but now he’s a jail bird too! Glad you posted. I was getting worried about you.