Day 42/May 13

Miles hiked: 11.05 in

Start: Darlington Shelter, PA

Finish: Duncannon, PA

Elevation gain: 1,316'
 

Sorry for the delays in posting. Very hard to do with a smartphone and the mobile version of the blogging website.

Still learning as I move from shelter to shelter, or a hostel/motel. Hot showers are every thru hiker's wet dream. ☺

After 500+ miles, I'm putting my adidas Terrex X-Kings in a hikers' box. They have been great, no complaints about the shoes at all. I have had only one blister, due mainly to the rain and mud. The next owner will be surprised at the grip of these shoes.

Our stop for the day was Duncannon, home to the Doyle Hotel, one of the original Budweiser Hotels, but now in a rather decrepit state. While many say that you just have to stay here, the rooms and showers (shared) are the pits, and Lumberjack and I opted not to stay at the Doyle, but a Red Carpet Inn about 3 miles out of town--they would shuttle us back and forth for a small fee. We did, however, enjoy lunch at the Doyle--even the locals say it has the best food in town, but they would never stay there. LOL

This was a resupply point for me as I had a package at the Post Office which I picked up the next morning on my way out of town. 

The Doyle Hotel is a place where the legends of yesteryear meet the travelers of the Appalachian Trail today; where hiking meets history.

“A lot of it is written, a lot of it is unwritten,” Vickey Kelly, one of the hotel’s owners, said. “There's been so much that has happened here.”

The postcards on the wall tell the unwritten history of a building that dates back to the 18th century.

As for the written history, it began as a wooden hotel in the 1770s. Adolphus Busch, of Budweiser fame, became its owner in 1880, but much of the original building burned to the ground in 1903.

It re-opened in 1905, but when Busch died in 1913, the Budweiser Company held ownership until it was sold off during Prohibition.

Naturally, a little luck of the Irish is how it became the Doyle.

“[Jim] ‘Doc’ Doyle in 1944 won the Irish Lotto and he bought this building with the money,” Pat Kelly, one of the owners, said. “He named it the Doyle in ‘45. It's been the Doyle ever since.”

Over the years, the Doyle became a logical stopping point for hikers along the Appalachian Trai.

Route from my Suunto.