After hiking 7-1/2 miles (5-1/2 of which were steady, foot-jarring downhill) we reached our final destination in time for lunch. The Davenport Gap Shelter was a very nice place with a good spring just down a short, steep hill. When we first got to the shelter we put up a clothesline in front of the fire to dry out an odd assortment of muddy, corroded socks, and everyone set their boots around the fire. As we sat around, eating Spam Spread on Bolton's Biscuits and watching Sparky scientifically "cook" the boots, all we lacked was a huge sign, "Clorox needed HERE."
That afternoon, out of pure meanness, we decided to test Sparky's Houdini powers again and locked her out of the shelter. Needless to say, she got in anyway.
That night, two brothers stayed in the shelter. Their father was the ranger at Davenport Gap, and they were startin gup the way we had just come.
We sat around our campfire and talked, sang, and played games. We didn't do anything remarkable, but stayed up pretty late.
When we got up the next mornign we fixed pancakes.
"Sparky" was Mary Greenwell, our CIT (counselor-in-training) counselor at Girl Scout Camp Shantituck, and the date was most likely the summer of 1969 or 1970.
