Appalachian Trail (day 55) - Danielsville to Church of the Mountain (Delaware Water Gap) / mile 1297

"Happiness does have a smell" written on water bottle cache

Long day with amazing surprise at the end.

I've woke up at 4 AM in the morning in order to hike 32 miles to the town called Delaware Water Gap and be there at a reasonable time to check in to a donation based church that hosted hikers. I've put the head torch on and packed all my variously wet items up.

It seemed like the rain was over for the time being. The whole day was mainly skipping over rocks and climbing the boulders but at least the path was not going up or down much. I was making really good progress and there was even a little bit of sunshine poking through the clouds in the afternoon.

Trail was empty, I must have met three people the entire day. Wolf Rock was the highlight of the day, a mile long boulder covered ridge, which was quite slippery after the rain so I had to take it slowly here while turkey vultures were patrolling the area. I've started the descent into town at 4 PM and arrived just over an hour later.

When I reached Presbyterian Church of the Mountain, Dave the caretaker told me that I've better hurry up as the dinner is in half an hour! Without knowing I got here just in time for a meal that has been served by the members of the church to the hikers once a week! And they only started serving it one week ago, it was too many coincidences for me to process but one thing I was certain of, I was very hungry.

I took a quick shower, hanged the wet tent outside to dry and joined the congregation for the dinner. There was only two other hikers here with me and we all got first spots in the queue. We said a short prayer and loaded our plates with homemade chillies, hot dogs, chickpea and ham soups, potato salads and pasta bakes then we sat between the members of the church to eat. They were all very friendly and kept on asking us questions about the journey. Building we were sitting in was custom made sixteen years ago to host hikers. After the dinner there was dessert of home made raspberry ice cream, chocolate cake, cookies, jelly and fresh fruit. We even got some cookies and fruit to take away.

After the dinner I went to a nearby gas station to top up resupply for the next couple of days and popped into a bakery everyone was raving about on my way back. I've got huge apple turnover for breakfast and even bigger triple chocolate cookie to take on trail. I was considering going back there tomorrow morning for a breakfast.

Delaware Water Gap was the last stop in Pennsylvania, tomorrow after crossing Delaware river the state of New Jersey will begin.

My one and only bunk room companion for the night (the other one opted to sleep in the tent) was a prolific snorer with sleep apnea. After midnight I had to evacuate to a living room area which had sofa I could sleep on.