If you’ve been following Jamie’s Instagram, you may have noticed that his shoes were totally thrashed. Completely falling apart.
Leading up to the 4th of July week, we did a lot of resupply work in advance since the girls and I planned to be at the beach. Who wants to worry about resupplies, etc. when you're trying to vacay?
I really thought everything was set for go... Until I saw his shoes right before we left.
He obviously needed new ones ASAP!
Well, right from the get-go, the whole thing was trouble. The website I was ordering from wouldn't accept the address I needed to use, so I had to call. They weren't open yet (Mountain Time!) so I had to call back. When I called back, the telephone prompts weren't responding to my inputs, so I tried the chat feature. Finally! I got someone who helped me place the order and I had them shipped next business day to Jamie's next stopping point. Oh, and since they were on sale, I bought 5 pairs and sent those to our house for future replacements. Seems like a "mission accomplished" story, right?
Wrong.
The order tracking for the ones going to Jamie on the trail (the important ones!) was stuck on “pending fulfillment” and never changed. I tracked. I called. I chatted. Every day.
And every day, I got the same responses designed to make you feel better, but without any real confirmation that things were moving in the right direction.
After tracking and chatting with no luck, and now moving into the window of "it's not even possible that they'll get there if they haven't shipped yet," I moved on to trying alternate suppliers. Unfortunately, every one of those alternatives had even longer delivery times!
So frustrating.
We are so accustomed to living in a world where we can get nearly everything in one or two days if you really need to. I mean, even the order I placed for the 5 pairs (without any rush shipping, mind you) had already been delivered to the house!
Maybe it shouldn't be, but it’s just such a shock when it doesn’t work that way!
And the holiday totally messed with the timing. We first learned this lesson during the AT hike, which is why I was ready to pay next day shipping to be absolutely sure they would arrive in time for Jamie’s next stop. I'm not sure I'm really in a position to give advice other than to say that however much you think you've planned for holiday and weekend shipping issues, it's probably not enough.
So, I’ve been very stressed about all this on these first few days at the beach!
And communications with Jamie are typically a little disjointed and fractured when they’re through the Garmin. There’s not an actual “string” like you would have on your phone, so it can be hard to know what's responding to what or if it's a response at all. So when I send him a message that says
“Shoe order is screwed up. Need to know exactly when you leave MML”
And then, all at once, get three messages...
“Can you please check on the Monarch boxes? Esp. The shoes. I feared a blowout so I bought some new ones, different brand. I now have blisters the size of”
“The balls of my feet. So %#*^ing stupid.”
“Saturday, after deliveries”
It's confusing. This adds to my stress. Can't talk to Jamie. Can't get any info from the shoe people. Can't find other shoes that will ship in time.
I’m not going to lie. I basically decided there was nothing I could do but hope for the best. Even said a little prayer. Then went to bed and got some sleep. After all, tomorrow is another day. (Someone said that once.)
And what do you know?! I woke up on the 4th of July, of all days, to a delivery notice for the shoes! My own personal little Independence Day added to the real Independence Day! And thank God! I sure will.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure this was the FedEx delivery guy who made the save….
'merica!
Go, Shelby‼️