Day 85, miles today- 14.3, total- 1,131.3

Allenberry Resort to Darlington Shelter.

The Professor and I had the breakfast buffet at Allenberry. Afterwards I walked to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy office in town. I hung out there for a while. Later I walked around the small lake and the Armed Services Memorial in the center of town. Boiling Springs looks like a nice town. I stayed in town until after I ate lunch.

I was hiking about 14 miles today, but the first 12 miles were flat as the trail passed through farmland. It was the easiest section of trail I've hiked since starting.

A few miles after starting, there was a lady and her two grandsons doing trail magic at a road crossing. Her trail name is Gran. She started a thru hike last year. She had a knee problem and had to get off trail. They were giving away ham sandwiches, Little Debbie Snacks, and cans of Coke. I wasn't hungry, so I took a sandwich with me to eat later.

I passed a small, very old cemetery. It was overgrown. I walked through it anyway. The oldest headstone I saw was for a person that died in 1775 at the age of 33. Most of them were from the early 1800's. Very interesting.

I got to the Darlington Shelter at 5:00 pm. I was the first thru hiker. There were four young guys. They were juniors in H.S. last year. They were in an outdoors club at school. They are out for a few days on their own. They were working on a campfire, but were having trouble getting it started. I went out and collected some wood and helped them with it.  There also was a girl that I met at Allenberry yesterday. Her name is Fables. She got on trail at Harper's Ferry. She plans to do a flip flop. She enjoys telling fables and riddles, and she's very good at it. Before I turned in for the night there were at least 12 thru hikers. I had only met about half of them before. The ones I had met are Life Raft, Tugboat, TK, Mountain Goat, and Spacey. The others are Hooker, Triple Six, Finder, and Calamity Jane. The others I'm not sure about. It seems strange meeting all of these new people. Tugboat and Life Raft are the only ones I've known for a long time. I knew The group of hikers I was around are 4-7 days ahead of me now. I'm not even considering trying to catch them.

A section hiker here had a guitar with him. He played a little, but most of the time the guy named Triple Six played. He was very good. It was enjoyable listening to him.