On Through New Jersey and the Heat

We slept really well last night. I know the heat really took it out of me, and it seemed to really slow the guys down as well. There was no chance of rain in the forecast, so we didn't put the fly on the tent. It's much cooler that way. It's nice when we can leave off the fly, and just lie down looking up at the stars, moon, and trees.
Keith had already spotted a good place for us to take a break from today's heat - a tavern that backed up to Kittatinny Lake. We were told it is hiker friendly, and you can eat and drink out back and soak your feet at the lake. Sounded perfect!
We headed that way. The trail was still rocky, but it was steadily improving as we put Pennsylvania behind us. We still had hot weather, but today at least there was a nice breeze.
At one point we ran into two older hikers who had hiked the AT in1973. They were fun to visit with, and invited us to come to the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association annual meeting in October in West Virginia. They were writing down everyone's trail names in a little book. We also met a couple who was counting butterflies. They do it once a year for the North American Butterfly Society. The lady was paranoid about getting ticks on her. She kept saying, "I don't want to get atticked!"
As we hiked, we ran into some Boy Scouts and other dayhikers. We met a hiker we had not met before named Easy Rider.
It was just a hot day, and the trail kept leaving the shade of the woods to go out on to overlooks, which were beautiful, but we were getting cooked! The miles were going very slowly, and the guys were anxious to reach Gyp's Tavern and the lake. Each time we would ask someone coming from that direction how close we were, we were never as close as we thought - quite discouraging.
We finally did reach the road though, and found the tavern, just as described- backing up to a beautiful lake. Easy rider, Mr. Fabulous, and Catnap were already there at a picnic table. We all ordered burgers, fries, and cold drinks, and decided we would hang out here til it cooled off. We only have 3 more miles til our campsite.
So, it's now about 5:30, and we are about to head out. The sky has clouded over - thank goodness! So it shouldn't be as hot. We will have to put the fly on today, because of a chance of rain, but the low is 65, so we should sleep well.
- Steady and F100