AT Midpoint, July 6th

Uncle Puck, Frank (now Hobo), and I arranged a 20 mile day of slack packing to the next hostel, Ironmasters Mansion Hostel. It rained lightly on and off all day and I was still sick but with the easy terrain and the promise of a warm bed and shower at the end of the day I had to push on.

Super easy terrain!

Now today was a special day, I crossed the halfway point. It was pretty misleading at first. There was a picture of the halfway sign, our books suggested that the thing might have been taken down temporarily.

Halfway????

Someone marked the ground with a 50%!!!!

We continued on and eventually came across the official sign!

We also crossed mile 1,100 today

The Iron Masters Mansion Hostel is some kind of historical site and they give tours and preserve the place. Two of their rooms were converted into bunk rooms, a mens and womans. I'm getting tried of the hostels that separate us by gender. I'd rather stay with my friends, the people I'm hiking with rather than be in a room by myself because I'm a girl. Either way, the place was clean and the people were nice.

Now the fun stuff. It is tradition for thru-hikers who make it to the halfway point to eat a half gallon of ice cream. I had really been kicking my ass to get here in time before the store that sells the ice cream closes. They did have an orange sherbert. Being lactose intolerant I thought that this would be a safer bet  for the challenge. It did have milk in it but the combination of being sick with this flavor sounding soothing, and the lesser amount of calories made this choice seem even better. I was told that I could only choose this flavor if I was lactose intolerant for the official challenge. They were surprised that it included milk when I pointed it out. Either way the challenge begins!

Yummm. The tubs are only 3 pints so I'll have to eat this, then buy a pint from them when it's gone. My second flavor choice will be Moosetracks.

Almooooost done with the 3 pint tub

I made my best effort at the half gallon challenge but ultimately the ice cream won. I had only taken one lactaid pill at the start. I should have taken more and continued to take them while eating. Lesson learned. It felt great on my throat at first. Hobo and Uncle Puck finished way before me and then finished their pints. Hobo had only just gotten on the trail too. I ended up rushing to the toilet 40 min in on the challenge. My shit was black and it leaked an orange color into the toilet bowl water. My insides felt awful, this was only the beginning. When I came out I was on a time crunch over the store closing and I still had to buy my pint.

I walked around the store while eating and found out that while I had been eating the owner was digging through their freezer to look into the sherberts. They discovered two more sherberts, both of which WERE dairy free. Oh great. I was struggling to finish, it didn't help that I just took off so much time for visits to Washington DC and Anthrocon. My hiker hunger just isn't what it was. Shortly after I found myself toilet bound, unable to leave as I had extreme pain and explosive diarrhea that would not stop. My ice cream had melted, the store had closed, and my stomach could not handle another bite: The challenge was over. I had almost eaten 3 pints, a good effort. Looking at the ingredients the significant amount of corn syrup in there probably made me sick as well as the dairy. I would have been better off with the regular ice cream I think. I spent the rest of the evening in the hostel visiting the toilet or laying in bed crying on the inside, feeling like i'm dying from the pain of it all. One day, i'd like to have a rematch.


 Tonight at the Ironmasters mansion hostel I'm at mile 1102.3 with 1087.5 left to go.