Day 72: Zeroing in Front Royal

May 18: Amanda left in the early morning hours, jetting off to wherever flight attendants jet off to whenever they have to work. I’d still hang around Front Royal for an extra day, however. I needed to catch up with more of these blog posts!

But I still managed to get out of the hotel a little bit. I walked to the post office, for instance, to mail some gear home. Now that winter was good and dead and warmer temperatures were hitting the trail, my winter gear was getting uncomfortably warm. My mom sent my summer gear to me, so I switched out my sleeping bag and some clothes and mailed the winter stuff back to her. This had the added effect of lightening my pack. Summer gear is lighter and smaller than winter gear. =)

I’m intrigued, but I didn’t stop in. =)

Then I walked to Wendy’s for lunch because even though I was taking a zero, I still needed to eat.

Then I walked over to Martins, a large grocery store where I bought lots of food to get me through the next section of trail.

And finally, I walked to the library. The computer at the hotel wasn’t attached to a printer so I couldn’t print anything and I needed a printer. So I walked to the library where I was able to get online and print postage for a medium flat-rate box from the post office. To get an early start the next morning, I didn’t want to deal with getting to the post office to mail my laptop ahead, so by pre-printing the postage, I could tape it to the box and have the hotel give it to the postman when they got their mail.

But to do that, I needed to make sure the package already had its postage paid and to do that, I needed a printer.

So that covered my day’s errands. The rest of the day, I hung out in the hotel room, typing up these blog entries. Hope you’ve been enjoying them! =)

I caught this deer feeding when I walked to the library. Even walking around town I see wildlife!

The streets of Front Royal are quiet and calm now, but during the Civil War, the streets were filled with Union and Confederate forces battling each other and on May 23, 1862, Stonewall Jackson captured the town from the Union. He didn’t hold it for very long, however, before he moved on to other battles. He pretty much left almost immediately after the town was captured!