Journal 151-ODYSSEY 2021: Bama to Baxter-Hike On!

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Tuesday–July 20, 2021
Trail Day–151
Trail Mile–-14.0/1,728.8
Location–Millbrook-Blairstown Road, then to home of Larry & Freida Luxenberg, New City, New York, AT Mile 1,310.1

I’ve a very soft spot in my heart for old places, like the Deer Head Inn here in Delaware Water Gap, built in the 1840s. Home of jazz in the Poconos, the Inn is the oldest continuously running jazz club in America. My room, the Queen Room, though nearing 200 years old, had all modern conveniences, just no elevator, and I was on the third floor (like that mattered). Creaky wood floors, high ceilings, transom windows above doors, all the neat old architectural features–my kind of place!

I manage to get out and going a little after seven–to cross the busy Delaware River Bridge. A scary place; I’m not used to concrete moving under my feet.

Heavily loaded eighteen-wheelers not only make the bridge vibrate, they cause the concrete pavement to actually move up and down! Yes, very scary.

Once across (and into New Jersey), the trail climbs, to pass Sunfish Pond (the first glacial feature on the trail) then on up to Raccoon Ridge, and finally Catfish Lookout Tower. More rocks to stagger around in. Same as the Pennsylvania rocks; they’re just called New Jersey rocks now.

Yes, I’m in New Jersey, another state, Pennsylvania, finally behind me.

Evening, coming up the trail to greet me, Larry & Freida Luxenberg, dear friends from New York. I’ll be their guest for the night at their home in New City…

I was a conservationist before they
invented the word environmental.
(Thomas H. Kean)
Note: Kean saved Sunfish Pond from being turned into a concrete-walled reservoir.