Less to do than we've done

It's been a nice past couple days. It's been a little colder than it should be but the rain's held off during the day. Yesterday, Michael set an unprecedented record for an early start for hikers under the age of 60. He left at 6:30 in the morning! (Chino's normal start time). He finished his 23.6 mile day at 2:15 in the afternoon!

Today we hit two big milestones. We crossed the halfway point and competed in the half gallon challenge! There were nine of us thru-hikers that made it to Pine Grove Furnace General Store to attempt to eat a half gallon of ice cream. Unfortunately the store was closed, but Blue Moon got someone to drive him to another store to buy 9 half gallons of ice cream. When he got back, we all got out our eating utensils and dug in. At first, it looked impossible, but slowly but surely people began to finish. I'm proud to say I put down the ice cream in a little over 30 minutes, but even more proud to say that I beat Michael in a food challenge! He finished his 15 minutes after me and was strugglin'. Nobody threw up and 8 out of 9 of us completed the challenge! To give you an idea of the calorie count, Moose put down 2,520 calories of moose tracks, I put down 1,920 calories of chocolate chip, and Michael put down 1,800 calories of strawberry.

We're doing a pretty short day today, but plan on going through Boiling Springs tomorrow and doing 26.3 miles. Also, I've been pretty impressed with my shoes. They're the only shoes I've worn for the past 2 and a half months, and they've gotten me through over 1,100 miles of the AT!

Only 1,081 miles to go!