I was up pretty late last night, after midnight, waiting for Jesse and his wife Holly, and his brother Seth and his wife Michelle and their daughter Stella to arrive. As a result, I didn't get up until 9:30 this morning, the latest I've woken up on the trail.
Jesse brought a care package of clothes (and a replacement credit card for one that was being expired due to a data breach; thanks again Mohammad for preparing that for me!), so this was the first day since I started the trail where I have not worn any of my hiking clothes. A little weird, but cool nonetheless. This did allow me to confirm that my tennis shoes are simply too small. After three months of wearing 11-wide boots, my size 10.5 tennis shoes were squeezing my foot in ways that now clearly felt wrong.
After a light breakfast, Jesse, his dad, Seth, Michelle, and I commenced our traditional "yardsaleing" run, first hitting the flea market on US 206 next to Jumboland before driving all over the place stopping at a long list of yard sales Jesse had collected.
This yardsale run was a bit more of a production than usual, but Jesse said it was his best day ever in terms of stuff he was able to buy. For my part, I only bought a DVD with what appear to be five awful B-movies, for $1.
For dinner, we went to the Walpack Inn, a restaurant in the middle of nowhere in the Delaware Water Gap that has great food, excellent bread, and a one-way mirrored window along the entire back side of the restaurant overlooking a field where, if you're lucky, you'll see deer, bears, and other forest animals. Normally, we show up closer to sunset (or after; they illuminate feeding areas with floodlights), but this time we got there relatively early, so I could actually see the field. There were no woodland creatures, but a few kids were let out into the field to run around. Jesse's parents very generously bought my dinner (Thanks again!), and we all also shared a slice of cake to celebrate Holly's birthday next week.
We returned to the Jersey House in time for fireworks. The community had a small badge on the lake that put on a fairly nice show, and a few other houses around the lake also joined in. The two houses almost directly opposite us had quite a selection of fireworks, and it seemed they were competing against each other for best secondary show. (In the game of competitive fireworks, everyone wins!)
Tomorrow: more laziness.