June 28 - Clark’s Ferry Plaza Motel, Duncannon, PA (Day 101 – milepoint 1118.3)

As we ate breakfast at the Plaza restaurant, Go-Go came in and sat down with us. She started telling us how terrorists had kidnapped her walking stick and were holding it for ransom.

“What should I do?” she asked, worried.

Achilles replied, “Well they sound pretty serious. What do they want?”

“Ice cream,” she said.

To which Silence replied, “In my experience, these kinds of terrorists can be unpredictable and often harsh. For all we know, they may have bound and gagged your stick to a chair!” Go-Go gasped.

“Serious, indeed. I think you should pay the ransom,” I concluded.

We all agreed and Go-Go thanked us as she rushed away. We returned to our room a short while later and a knock on our door soon followed. With bandanas over our faces, we opened the door to find Go-Go with what she claimed to be the ransom for her walking stick. She handed me a cup filled with ice and on top of the ice was a small packet of half-n-half dairy creamer.

“Iced Cream.”

Not what we were hoping for, but Go-Go got her stick back on creativity points alone.

Mom arrived today to hike with me for a few days. “My idea of roughing it is a Motel 6 without a remote control,” she says. Mom has never been camping and has not been 2 days without a shower, at least not during my lifetime. We shall accomplish both.

Sister Jamie is here, too, and will head home tomorrow. She has a broken thumb and I asked her about it. “I went out for a beer with a friend…” she began. And she woke the next morning with a watermelon sized thumb, and pain to match. “…It must have been when I fell off the bar,” she concluded. Hmm, well yes, I can understand how that can happen, poor innocent little thing…

We had a good group dinner, also joined by Saint and new faces, Pancake and Supertramp. I watched Pancake put away an unbelievable amount of food. Looks like Achilles has some competition.

Aquaholic