Date: 2019-06-26
From: Campsite near Darlington Shelter 

To: The Doyle Hotel, Duncannon 
Miles today: 10.0

Day 86 The DoyleA number of days back I slid on a rock and with that my shoe sole separated from the main body on one side. I now had several toes poking out so it was time to get a new pair! I was pretty pleased with the runners I had. ( Yes, I don¢t have boots!) They¢d lasted 700 miles. Most hikers I meet only seem to get 450 miles out of their boots or trail runners; the path is so tough on them. I¢d never done a mail order in the USA but there¢s always a first time. I knew I was to be coming in to the town of Duncannon and it had a hotel there called ¢The Doyle¢. It accepted packages for hikers so I made an order for the same trail shoes I had before, and had the delivery address as The Doyle Hotel in Duncannon. Hopefully they would get there. Anyways today was the day I¢d get to Duncannon and I was excited to get my new footwear as my exposed toes were not enjoying smashing up against the trail rocks. Coming down into the town it was a steep slope. A couple of young hikers I knew ran down the steep slope past me. ¢How do they do that?¢ I asked myself. If I tried that my hike would be over in a flash as I would stumble and do myself a major injury. I carefully plodded on, placing my trekking poles diligently on each stride, scrutinising where to place them, and guiding my exposed pinkies past every step. Once down the bottom I entered the Main Street of the town. Boarded up shopfronts, dilapidated facades and empty buildings told a tale similar across many small towns. I stepped with anticipation into the Doyle Hotel, it¢s faded paintwork matching the general demeanour of the precinct. There was a pile of packages there but none for ¢Treetrunk ¢ Hmmm?I checked my emails and today there was one from the shoe company. ¢Order Cancelled¢ The lady behind the bar suggested I ring them up. I asked for a bit of coaching and put the phone on speaker. I nodded to the lady behind the bar and she placed a beer in my hand, then turned down the volume on the TV. When I got past the inevitable computer generated greeting and keypad punching I was told by the operator that the order was canceled because I had a foreign credit card from Australia. There were chuckles all around from everyone at the bar. The bar lady placed another beer in front of me. I pleaded with the operator that I was doing the AT and needed shoes now. Our conversation plodded on and the bar lady suggested I needed to be a ¢squeaky wheel because I was in America and the squeaky wheel gets the oil¢4 or 5 minutes later the operator said if I placed the order anew on the internet she would intercept it and make sure the computerised system didn¢t cancel it again. ¢Can you overnight the delivery?¢ I asked. ¢Oh sure, that¢ll be a $25 charge, and that should get the shoes there by Monday at the latest¢ The bar erupted in laughter. See it was Wednesday and ¢overnight¢ obviously had a different meaning than what I normally understood it to mean. The lady placed another beer in front of me. So it was resolved that I redo the order, on the internet, then call the operator back and proceed from there. Ninety minutes and two failed orders later, I eventually had success, and the operator assured me she¢d do her best to make sure overnight really meant overnight. Robert Burns wrote ¢The best laid schemes ¢o mice an¢ men often go awry¢, and I settled back contemplating ¢especially when computerised logarithms are involved¢. That evening the local Lutheran Church put on a hiker feast. One of the ladies had a blueberry patch and her pie with homemade icecream was an absolute treat. I went to bed that night with a full tummy.