Wow, today was full of surprises. For starters, it’s pretty easy to lose track of the days out here and after taking a really slow morning/waiting out the rain at Mosey’s, I realized that it was Friday and I had exactly 24 hours to cover 33 miles before the post office in the next town closed. Off to the races!
With the day halfway over already, I had to go as fast as I could to make up the miles, but passed some of New Jersey’s beautiful wetland areas.
This boardwalk is a very popular photograph that people take on the AT, and I had no idea I would be passing it today-how cool! 
Anyway, I was making remarkably good time and was almost going to make it to the shelter before dark (a miracle considering how many miles I had to crank out) when the Lord intervened with other plans.
I climbed a rocky mountain and came across another hiker who had injured himself on the climb up and decided to go ahead and cook my dinner with him at the overlook since the sun was setting. We got to talking and had a fantastic conversation about life and faith. I was able to connect him with some local trail contacts (he thinks he’ll be fine by morning) just in case. Here’s the sunset we enjoyed together:
The sun went down after my delay, but I quickly ran into another hiker who I got to chat with all the way to the shelter 4 miles away-we got to see some pretty amazing stars and twinkling fireflies. The day I thought would be a death march (and it seemed it at first) turned out to be one of my favorite trail days yet!