July 19 Mile 1172

Last night was a beautiful evening. Not a cloud in the sky. I even got a signal on my I-phone and was able to check the local weather- no rain. So I didn't put up my rain cover on my tent. About 4:30 AM I heard it. Boom! Thunder! Jumped out of my tent and got the rain cover on in record speed. Dived back into the tent and the rain came pouring down. And the lightning and thunder put on quite a show. Luckily it was all over by the time we wanted to get up.
Had an ambitious hiking day planned. Wanted to go about 19 miles to a camping area in a state park. But water is very scarce in the area, we are told. Hiking in this part of PA is much like hiking in southern VA. They take you up a mtn, then you walk the ridge for many miles, then they take you down the mtn. Nice thing here is the mtns are between 500-1000 feet high, so it's a lot easier.
Today the long hike on the ridge was very pretty and very flat. Lots of evergreens and old coal mining towns from the 1800s. Hiked for a while on an 1800s stagecoach road. Pretty rocky. Hope the had good shock absorbers. Around 5 PM , after going 14 miles or so, we reached a creek that was to be our last good water source for the day. So we filled up all our containers, about 6 liters, plus our gallon tank and hiked off, carrying our tankful of water foe another 4-5 miles, up over a 500 foot mtn, called South Mtn. Finally getting down to the park and a bunch of highways by 7PM. Found a great site, but it's very near a highway. Can't see the cars but can hear them. Doesnt really add to the camping experience. And at dusk someone decided this was July 4, cause there was quite a fireworks display we could see thru the trees.
Worked on my sore feet all day. But then had an idea. When I put on my Vasque hiking shoes-pain. When I put on my Nike slides- no pain. So for an experiment this afternoon, when my feet really hurt, I took off the hiking shoes and wore the slides for about 2 miles. Don't really recommend it for hiking. But, my feet really didn't hurt. I think the hiking shoes squeeze my toes up way too much, even though I have a wide size, a larger than I normally wear. So I decided to operate on my boots. Took Cisco's big knife and sliced the side near the toes to get some pressure relief. Took my foot out first.
We'll see tomorrow if this works.
Plan another long day.