day 53 - 05/02

i woke up today and ate breakfast with a deer - see the pic below. it was so great. i was nice and quiet for a while until she got used to me and then just went about my business and she just hung out eating the greens of some daffodils that had already passed. i am officially past the half way point as of today. the funny thing is that the sign still had the mileage from last year, 1090.5, but they moved it, attempting to put it in the correct place, but it was till wrong. lol! the total mileage this year is 2184.2, making the halfway point 1092.1. i passed the tom's run shelter at mile 1092.3 and realized i had already passed the halfway point and then came upon the sign in the picture below another .2mi from the shelter. oh well, at least it was in the vicinity. i also made it to pine furnace village and the home of the half gallon ice cream challenge where thru hikers eat a half gallon of ice cream in one sitting to comemerate their half way point. unfortunately, the general store was closed, which was fine with me because i had been feeling nauseous all day. probably better that i didn't eat the ice cream and then possibly eat it for a second time on the way up. lol. oh, and i passed mile 1100 today. 32.6mi from quarry gap to alec kennedy shelter. 1111.3 total.