Day 70 Zero Day No 7, Luray

Today's miles 0.  AT miles 937.9

We had breakfast at the hotel restaurant this morning, it wasn't included in our room cost but they had a good choice of food and cheap enough at $13 for both of us, guests get a 20% discount.  It was still wet this morning, however the rain did eventually stop by midday.  We got picked up at 9.30 by Dick, a really nice guy who's Vice President and a volunteer for the PATC (Potomac Appalachian Trail Club).  He drove us the twenty or so miles to Front Royal Post Office and back to collect our bounce boxes.  He is off to Wales in September to walk the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path which he was very much looking forward to so we were chatting about that.

We recovered a few items we needed from our bounce boxes then repacked them, compacting three boxes into two.  The items and winter clothing we're bouncing up the trail weighed 12+lbs so a good weight saving on our backs.  We've posted them about 500 miles up the trail, so no getting anything back for a few weeks.  My old trusty boots came out the bounce box again and my new boots went in!  My blisters are dry and healing but I didn't want to risk getting repeated blisters in the same spot from the new boots.  I'll let them heal totally first then maybe try the new boots again in 500 miles knowing beforehand where the problem areas will be.  If not my new boots wont be wasted, they'll be OK for South America when we'll be doing much shorter day walks.

We had lunch at the Artisan Deli, a very nice $5 chicken wrap lunch deal plus side.  They also had some delicious desserts we couldn't resist, bread and butter pudding with a bourbon glaze for Nigel and hot chocolate brownie and ice cream for me.  It was time for an afternoon nap after that. 

We had a phone call from our German friends, they were all safe and heading to our hotel.  There was a really nice authentic Italian restaurant right next to our hotel so we went there for dinner, really nice food, we were stuffed.  On the way back to our room we visited our German friends, it was great to catch up with them.  We're all at the same mileage now on the trail so should see more of each other although we do have slightly different walking schedules for the next few days.  Iron Man is about 17 trail miles behind us all but he'll soon catch up in a couple of days.  Its common on the trail to be constantly leap frogging, getting ahead and/or behind other hiker friends depending on individual schedules and hiking pace.