Mail Drop FROM Loner

A package of goodies from Loner arrived in my mailbox today - lots of pamphlets from Virginia, some great small books for his collection, one on Virginia Native Americans and another on Virginia History, business cards for me to include in his scrapbook with email addresses from other thru-hikers, and a flash drive with videos and photos.  Most of them are from the beginning of his trip so I'm only able to guess where he is now. 
He shipped the package from Waynesboro, so I imagine he is somewhere in the Shenadoah's, heading for the halfway mark. He mentioned in a comment on one of his videos that he left a book I sent him to read, Appalachian Trials by Zach Davis at the Dutch Hause in Virginia. I'm planning on buying a new one to keep in my library.
 I checked out the website and it looks like a great bed and breakfast who also cater to thru-hikers so I hope he was able to stay there one night.  I told him to leave the book behind somewhere as a tiny bit of Trail Magic so he didn't have to carry the extra weight since he's a gram weenie and tries to keep his pack weight down to 15 lbs. with water.
So once again  I'm getting to enjoy to beauty of his journey long distance and am busy planning spots we can stay when we drive up to Trail Days next year.
He'll probably have a fit I'm making all these plans, but he can go up in his camper and Beth and I and the girls can go separately so we can plan separate trips and meet there.  I already have a list of cabins and B&B's I want to visit.
And while I'm on the subject of mail drops - I'm learning they don't always work out.  Jeff arrived in Damascus, VA too late on a Saturday to food drops up, so decided to move on.   He left a note asking if they could be forwarded to Marion, which unfortunately did not happen, (maybe it disappeared), However, the lady at the Marion P.O. was so nice that she called the Damascus office and asked them to forward them to Pearisburg, which they did.  Unfortunately this ended up with loner receiving seven boxes in one drop!  Two I'd sent already to Pearisburg,  The bounce box and computer box Jeff sends ahead every two hundred miles and three my daughter and I sent to Damascus.  This is not such a good situation - you can have too much of a good thing when you have to carry seven boxes a mile to the hostel or hotel or figure out which ones to forward ahead. Luckily Jeff got a ride to the hotel.
 But at least he got almost everything (except for the 2nd half of his guide book, which if it was in an envelope ended up in a whole different room.)
So there you have it - the post offices in trail towns will do everything they can to get mail to our hikers, but coordinate with your hikers ahead of time, if possible, to avoid goodie overload!

Loner at 720 miles

Jeff aka Loner has now reached 720 miles and posted eleven new video's up on his you tube site, Loner AT 2012. He found an outfitter in Daleville so finally has good new shoes.  His first pair of New Balance lasted 630 miles and then he had to make do with a pair of wanna be Keds from the General Dollar for the next 90 miles because there was no outfitter in the town before Daleville.  He hiked one of the rockier more cliff side areas in those wanna be sneakers.
The lost mail drop boxes showed up - so Jeff ended up with 7 resupply boxes at one time. Not cool to carry a couple of miles to a hotel.  He had some trail angels give him a lift so that worked out and he bounced some of the food boxes forward. 
He finally got the copy of Appalachian Trials I sent him.  A great book by Zak Davis.  And he was able to buy another AT Companion since the second half of his did get lost in the mail, but the one he has now is last year's.  Hopefully it won't steer him too far off the current AT, but better than none.  He was walking the wrong way towards Pearisburg, but luckily he was pulled over at the side of the highway and the police officer was nice enough to tell him which way to go.
Check out the videos - some awesome scenery and some of the most celebrated spots on the trail such as Dragon's Tooth, Angels Rest, Tinker Cliffs and McAfee Knob, as well as a cooking lesson and a toga run to the laundry.
My computer at home isn't working right now so posts and photos will be few abnd far between.  But Jeff's videos more than make up for my silence.