Month: August 2024

It’s a short 13 mile day today from one town to another. It’s a mix of trails, bike paths, and sidewalks. Let’s call it a recovery day.

I wake up early and eat breakfast, but lounge around the room for several hours. I don’t need to leave until 10 today. I spend the time going over my food stash and planning where I will camp for the next few days.

By the time I leave the hotel, it is still overcast and windy – perfect hiking weather. I only need to hike a little over a mile to get out of town into the first trail section. It is called the dunes section, but I don’t see any dunes. It is mostly pines and cedars with some swamp hardwoods and meadows mixed in.

After a few miles of that, the trail drops me out on the main highway to Manitowoc. I will be on a bike trail for the next five or so miles into town. By now the clouds are gone and the sun is out. The cool breeze makes it pleasant hiking. I take a break by the shore of Lake Michigan to eat my lunch of leftover pizza.

The path through town twists and winds all over the place. This is an official route marked in blue on the map. I have to follow all the twists and turns. Green marked road walks you can pick your own route.

It doesn’t take long for me to figure out the method to their twists. They are taking us to the city’s highlights. Starting with the waterfront downtown. Then moving uptown to Union Park. Then by the side of the river. Followed by a pass along evergreen cemetery and the final crossing of the river.

Now we are back to trails. It is about one and a half miles through a park and then another one and a half miles to where I will diverge from the suggested route. The park is along the other bank of the river and wines along its banks and up to a lookout point high above the river.

Trespassers will be consumed by vegetation

I stopped to chat with a local, in fact the first local that I’ve met that even knows what the Ice Age Trail is. She lets me know about a Mexican restaurant that is just a few blocks from my hotel.

I finally find a convenience store just after 3:00 and stop to grab a Coke. Since when did a coke cost $2.50. I sure am glad I don’t normally drink these but I think this will be my coffee substitute for today.

I checked into the hotel, got a quick shower, then checked out my potential stops between here and my next resupply point. There are more convenience store and restaurant stops along the way then I thought. Instead of buying three full days of food I really only need to buy two breakfasts and two lunches.

With my shopping list in hand a head over to the Mexican restaurant. It was worth the stop. The grocery store is just a few blocks further. With all my chores done I head back to the room and pack the food in my food bag. Food and water weight creeps up on you very quickly.

I will start out tomorrow light on water and then pick some up at a convenience store along the way. If I stick to the route I have planned it will be a 27 and a half mile day. Plus one extra mile if I decide to stop at a restaurant along the way that’s about a half a mile off my path.

Emotion of the day, Relaxed

I really enjoy getting an early start, so purposely starting late feels kind of weird to me. But it sets the tone for the entire day. Instead of a hiker striving to get to the destination as quickly as possible, I feel more like a tourist.

I take the time to stop and read the various plaques at the parks that I pass by today. I amble along at a decent pace, but without urgency. I feel relaxed because I have plenty of time to complete my day. Tomorrow will definitely be different. The calm before the storm.

It rained during the evening but the weather is supposed to be quite pleasant today. I have a long hike into Two Rivers today and it would be nice to have cool weather rather than hot sun.

I am up and moving by 6:30 as the trail continues through the woods where I have camped. This is a dispersed camping area, but there is no clear ground. You just have to find an area with fewer sticks and rocks than the other areas. And at this site the slugs are covering my tent which takes an extra few minutes to clear them off.

It is only 3 mi to the town of Tish Mills, and my destination there is the Dollar General. Much of the three miles is in between rows of crops. It reminds me of hiking across the Cumberland valley on the Appalachian Trail. My feet get soaking wet but it is easy hiking.

I have to kill a little bit of time before the store opens so I stop at the park to empty my trash and fill up my water bottles. I also change into dry socks so my shoes will dry out faster for the 6 miles of road walking I have ahead of me.

The trail goes across a covered bridge to get to the park. It’s probably the sturdiest built covered bridge I’ve ever seen. The concrete railings must be over a foot thick.

At about 8:15 I head over to the store to get my supplies. Breakfast today will be ice cream and lunch will be lunchables and Gatorade. They have a four pack of drumsticks that is about the same price as ice cream so that will be the perfect snack I can eat while I’m walking. All four have been consumed by the time I leave town and I’m able to dump my trash at the high school trash cans.

The morning will be about a 6 Mile road walk to get to a State Park area. Once I hit there I will be on actual trails until the last few miles into the town of Two Rivers. The road walk is a repeat of corn and soybean fields.

The trail begins in some sort of a school property and not actually the state park yet. The trails are nice but they are dancing in and out of swamps and across a very long boardwalk so the mosquitoes are pretty heavy. The swamps give way to pine forest but the mosquitoes are still present.

Once I am in the park you can hear the waves of lake Michigan. The trail is again through swampy areas but the mosquitoes are not quite as bad as the previous few miles. I guess being closer to the lake helps because the breeze is a little stronger.

My destination for lunch is the hiker and kayaker campsite on the beach. When I get there I am surprised to see that it really does look like a beach that would be on the ocean. There are coats there are sand dunes and there are waves about one and a half foot tall.

After I finish my lunch I walk down to the shoreline to feel the water. It is not cold at all and of course I have to taste it. The water is obviously fresh water and doesn’t taste like salt. This messes with my brain pretty badly. Waves are supposed to be salty.

I keep making my way down the trails which intersect with other loop trails and bike paths. But before long the trail heads straight out onto the beach. For the next 2.1 miles I will be walking on the beach sand. The sand is very soft, and there is not much of an apron of compacted sand near the surf.

Only 20 ft of walking in The Sand convinces me I should try closer to the water. The hiking is much easier but it is a pretty steep slope which doesn’t bother my ankles. The only problem is I have to keep pretty vigilant on the waves to not let them soak my shoes.

I apparently made good time on the beach, because I almost missed the exit point. I saw a structure in the distance and thought that must be the exit point so I decided to check my map. The map told me I had just passed the exit point so when I turned around I indeed saw the sign up on the dunes telling me to exit. Luckily I only went about 20 yards too far.

From the exit point it is now about 2 miles of back streets into the town. The road that is on the beach is one way only and has adequate pavement for bikes and walkers. It is a very nice setup.

It started to sprinkle on me while I was on the second half of the beach walk. But now the rain has let up so I can put my umbrella away and enjoy the sights. I can see the hotel from about a mile away so I know I’m going in the right direction and exactly how far I need to go.

Once I am at the hotel, I discovered that they have guest laundry. This will be chore number two after getting dinner. But right now a shower is chore zero.

I relax for about an hour before walking next door to grab a pizza. As is usual I order one that is too large. I order a 16 inch when I should have ordered a 12-in. I can barely eat half the pizza. I was wanting to have leftovers for tomorrow’s walk, but a half of a pizza is more than I was anticipating. I am not planning on starting hiking tomorrow until 10:00 a.m. so I guess Pizza will also be second breakfast.

I watch another horrible Star Wars movie while I am doing laundry. When will I ever learn. I will use the extra hours I have in the morning to catch up on email and blogs and planning out the next few days. I need to do a better job of food resupply because I have been carrying far more food than I need so far during the hike. Later on in the hike, I will have a 6 day and a 7 day carry. So I need to be more efficient in carrying only what I need for the next section.

Emotion of the day, Rhythm

I’m not sure you can call rhythm and emotion, but that’s what today felt like. Packing up this morning went like clockwork. The morning road walk to town went very quickly. The time spent in the Dollar General was minimal. The rest of the road walking and hiking on the trails just felt like hiking.

It feels like intuition is taking over a little more, and I am having to check the maps less and less. Even nearly missing the exit from the beach seemed like good luck. But somehow I just knew it was time to get off the beach.

I am not even dreading the road walks anymore. I have another long one the day after tomorrow. And it’s just a matter of looking to see if there are places where I can get water or not. I think I am finally into the rhythm of hiking again.

Staying at Janda’s last night was definitely the right move. My foot and calf were sore for most of the night. But this morning they are in perfect shape other than being a little stiff. What is not in perfect shape is my headache. I’m not dehydrated so it must be caffeine withdrawal because I had no caffeine yesterday afternoon or this morning.

A caffeine headache is nearly impossible to get rid of. And even though I got an early 6:30 a.m. start I’m only moving at about 2 mph. I should be closer to 3 mph. My

I ate as much granola as I could tolerate this morning. I had a little bit of Gatorade and some water. I should be hungry but I’m just not. In fact I feel a little nauseous.

At about 9:30 a.m. I force myself to eat a nut bar. I should be hungry but I just can’t get the urge to eat. My nose starts to run a little and then I panic. I am beginning to think I have covid. But I don’t have any fever at all.

By 10:30 I am dragging so I just lay down on the side of the road. If I can nap for 1 hour maybe that will make me feel better. It definitely worked on the Florida Trail when this happened. One of the locals on an ATV stops and asks if I’m okay and I assure him that I am but I’m just tired.

I resume hiking by 11:30 but I am still nauseous and just don’t want to drink or eat anything. I don’t force myself to eat but I do force myself to drink.

I still have plenty of water and when I come upon my planned water stop the stream is too hard to get to. I am only a few miles from the next one where I will actually be on a trail and not a road. So I just keep on moving.

When I get to the end of the road walk where it turns into an actual trail, I decide to take another nap under a giant tree. This one hour nap also fails to make me feel any better.

I am still over 8 mi from my stopping point so I just need to get up and go. My heart sinks when I discover that my dragonfly has fallen off the pole somewhere on the road walk. So long little buddy it was a good 5 days.

As I walk along the river, I am constantly searching for a place where I can reach the water without having a steep bank of grass. The places where the map says you can get water are definitely inaccessible.

I just happened to stumble upon a nice shady tree that has a path that leads right down to a muddy bank along the river. This one is not on the map. I drink nearly a liter of water and filter another one and a half to carry with me.

I’m finally starting to feel a little better. So I pack everything up and start to lift my pack up. My heart sinks even further than the dragonfly incident when I notice that my tent pole is not in its proper place. After only 10 seconds of searching I realize that it must have fallen out when I took my umbrella out at the beginning of this Trail section.

So I grab my cell phone and wallet (the most important gear) and head back upstream. I use my watch to measure the distance and it is 6/10 of a mile back to where I remember pulling my umbrella out. And right there on the ground is my tent pole sitting on the grass. A quick prayer of thanks and a kiss on the poles and it’s time to get back to my pack.

It is just now that I realize that my nausea is completely gone. So if you are ever looking for a cure for nausea, the only one I know that works is a near heart attack incident.

The good part is that now at least I’m moving my normal pace. I have 7 miles to go and I should be able to do it in well under 3 hours.

There is another 2 mile road walk, then another one mile stretch of trail, then another 4 mile road walk to the place where I’m planning to camp tonight.

I get there right on time. It is heavily forested with white pines along another stream. That means there’s bound to be mosquitoes. It takes a while to find a site because the ground is so uneven. I guess that’s why they call this a dispersed campsite and not a campsite.

I set up my tent quickly and throw everything inside. I wash as much sweat off of my neck and arms and legs as I can and jump inside. I have managed to let in about a dozen mosquitoes with me. 10 of them will be dispatched to their maker within minutes.

I have almost 3 hours until dark so I can afford the luxury of resting before trying to cook. I will cook just outside of the tent by reaching my hand through a smaller hole as I can leave in the net and still get things done. But I will definitely be eating in the tent tonight.

I still have a very slight headache but the nausea is completely gone. I am hoping that tomorrow I will feel like a million bucks.

Emotion of the day, Fear

I knew when I woke up with the headache that it wasn’t going to be a good day. But then when I got nauseous and then panicked and thought it that I had covid I wasn’t sure what to think. If I really did have covid how would I get off the trail?

Is it polite to call for Uber when you have covid? Probably not. Is it polite to hitchhike when you have covid? Probably not. I guess that leaves calling 911. Let’s hope it never comes to that.

There is always some degree of fear when you’re through hiking. Something bad could easily happen. A hurricane is headed towards Florida as I’m writing this. So even external forces can end a through hike.

Today was as close as I have come to thinking I might have to end through hike. Fear can come from a million directions. Just don’t let it stop you for the wrong reasons.

I slept well last night. I was rested, I was fed, I was watching one of those awful Star Wars movies. I think the movie is what put me to sleep.

Breakfast at the hotel was interesting. There were boxes of cereal with random bags of cereal in them. I reached for the mini wheats and ended up getting cinnamon toast crunch. I guess that will do. Add a bagel and cream cheese and some coffee and I am set.

I am able to leave town by 7:15. It is nice and cool walking through town and there is a wonderful breeze. But today is supposed to be a pretty hot day.

You leave town on one of the rail trails and it is heavily wooded most of the way. We are hiking along the banks of the Kewanee River. I have loaded up with four and a half liters of water and Gatorade. I concentrate on drinking the water first because it is the only thing that I can replenish today.

A few hours into the hike I am actually passed by another hiker. He is a local who is section hiking 15 to 20 mile chunks at a time. He has a ride at the end of the rail trail so his pace is much faster than mine. I have to keep my speed down so that I don’t overuse any part of my body for a long day of hiking today.

The rail trail is about 14 miles long. And then it is about 20 more miles of continuous roadwalking. Where I will end up tonight I am uncertain but I am shooting for a restaurant in Ellisville that lets you camp in a field behind the parking lot.

By the time I get to the last point on the Kewanee River where you can get water, I discovered the slope is very steep. It is too steep for me to even think about trying to get water. If I had bothered to read the comments in the hiking app I would have seen that.

I have only gone through just over one liter of water so I’m not in dire need of it yet. There is still one more creek that I will cross about four miles into the road walk. I will concentrate on drinking as much water as I can before then so that I can make best use of refilling my bottles.

When the trail ends, there is a parking area with some picnic tables that I can drag under a tree for some shade. There is also a porta potty which is conveniently timed. I try and make a fairly long stop here and eat and drink as much as I can to be well rested before starting the road walk. By the time I leave it is still only 12:30 and I have already done 14 miles.

The road walk has absolutely no shade so the umbrella is a necessity at this point. Silly me makes a wrong turn before the first intersection. I turn one road too early and it has me bending back towards the way the trail had approached.

I see on the map that I can keep going and reconnect with the official route with probably only a half a mile of wasted travel. At this point that is better than backtracking to get back to where I should have turned.

The roads are very lightly traveled. They are through mostly corn and soybean with a few wheat fields and another grain I don’t recognize. They are at least nice roads to have to do a long road walk on.

After I get back on the official route I will only be going a mile further before I purposely turn a different direction to head to my destination in Ellisville.The official route is on smaller roads but takes an extra 2 miles to get to almost the same place I’m headed to.

Where I turn takes me on a larger road with more traffic including trucks. But I will only be on it for two and a half miles to Ellisville. After Ellisville I will be back on the official route and on small roads again.

About 1 mi from Ellisville I see a Lutheran Church with a ball field across the street from it. The church is in bright sun but the ball field has a heavily tree covered area and I can see picnic tables underneath. This is the perfect spot to make a decision whether to try and stop and Ellisville or to try and keep going.

If I try to camp at the bar then I only have one more mile to go. If I decide to go past the bar then I have 13 more miles to go. I decide to rest here for 30 minutes to see what my body tells me to do.

There is a big difference between a 20-mile day and a 32-mile day on the 4th day of a trip. By the time I am ready to leave my left foot is a little bit sore. That is the decision maker. I will try to stop in Ellisville.

When I get to Janda’s bar in Ellisville, I discover that it is packed wall to wall full of people. Apparently someone is having a retirement party tonight and it looks like the entire town is here to celebrate. I managed to find one seat at the very end of the bar and order a chicken sandwich and fries and end up drinking three glasses of water.

They are all very friendly inside and the bartender says it will be no problem if I wanted to camp in the field out back. The decision has been made. Out back the field is huge. It’s about the size of three football fields or even latger.

But more importantly there’s a few really large trees casting gigantic shadows where I can rest in the shade. I’m not even concentrating on setting up the tent yet I just want to go rest in the field. I rest in the field for at least 2 hours before even starting to make camp.

The traffic that goes by is very interesting. There are the typical teenagers in diesel trucks rolling coal as they drive down the street. But then there is also a hayride on a very sophisticated wagon with gates and railings all around it. Just another Saturday night in Wisconsin..

Emotion of the day, Nervousness

This will be my first big day of the trip. If things didn’t go smoothly then this could have been the first really, really big day of the trip. I was nervous not knowing if Janda’s would allow me to camp out back. I was nervous not knowing if I had enough water to actually make the distance to Jandas. I was nervous not knowing if I would be able to get water from the stream I intended to get it from. And I was nervous not knowing if my feet were ready for a long road walk at the end of the day.

As it turned out everything worked great. The location where I got water was fine. It was a bit of a bushwhack to get to the water but it wasn’t steep. And the water was a little cloudy but after I filtered it it tasted great. And the field at Janda’s turned out to be way nicer than I anticipated. So there was no need to be nervous after all. But I would rather be nervous than be too cocky and screw something up.

Today was the first day where there was more road walking than trail walking. 500 out of 1150 are road miles, so these days will come quite frequently.

Camping in an RV part as a tent camper is not the best experience. There was a shower as well as a pool, but there were also street lights and camper LED string lights all over the place, too.

About an hour after dark it started to rain. I was hoping it would cool things off, but it didn’t. I felt like I was in a small sauna most of the night. I had to keep one flap open to allow the heat escape. It did not get even remotely cool until 4 am.

I must have slept better than I thought, because 7 am came around very quickly. I nibbled on handfuls of granola while packing up. I was on the road by 7:30.

The sky was clear without the faintest sign of clouds. The forecast for the next three days is clear and hot.

There are about two miles of rail trail before hitting the next town of Algoma. It’s a small lakeside town with a few restaurants, one of which is a coffee shop, my next destination. The shop serves both breakfast and lunch all day. I get a chicken and artichoke wrap to go with an Americano.

I hit the convenience store on the way out of town to fill up on water, Gatorade, and some sausage and cheese for lunch. From this point on, it will be all roads for the rest of the day.

I start out on highway 42, which a fair amount of traffic but also has a huge shoulder to walk on. After a mile, the trail turns onto back roads. Eighty percent of them being farmland.

The first two miles of back roads are well shaded, but I have my sun umbrella out anyway. But once the road turns due south, there are large power lines along the roads, so there will be no more shade for a while. I love my umbrella.

I do manage to find a side road cutting into a row of tall pines. Lake Michigan is only a quarter mile away, so there is a nice cool breeze and plenty of shade. I spend 30 minutes there resting and eating lunch. I have more water than I need for this stretch, so I make sure I am drinking it regularly.

The afternoon goes by quickly and before I know it, I am in the next town of Kewaunee. I am a little early, so I cannot check into the hotel yet. All sixteen miles with several stops and meals are done by 2:30. Let’s see what is open in this town. Unfortunately, not much. There is only one convenience store with outrageous prices. Looks like a light resupply today.

I do manage to find a bar that serves food so I grab a quick burger and fries and drink three waters. I guess I was thirsty. At least I know I have enough sodium now.

The hotel is very eclectic. It is still decorated like it is the 1930s. The credit card machine is out of paper and the poor clerk is trying to check in three of us at the same time. I finally get my key and head up to the room to get a shower. I will be camping tomorrow after another hot day, so this will be the cleanest I will be for the next several days until it rains.

Emotion of the day, Sadness

I lost my sunglasses today. I did not even realize I had lost them until I was almost into town. I know I had them when I left Algoma. I only stopped a few times, and I am usually careful to check the ground when I leave. But apparently not careful enough. I lost my prescription sunglasses on the Pacific Crest Trail the same way.

But I noticed with the umbrella on bright pavement that I didn’t even need them. I guess I will be using the umbrella more often now. I really liked those sunglasses. It makes me sad to have lost two pair now. But at least these were not prescription.

Waking up at 6 am is fine as long as you get to sleep at a decent time. Ten for me, so 8 hours is a win in my book.

I go to the lobby to see what they have for breakfast items. I am delighted to see two kinds of burritos. Not breakfast burritos, but real burritos. Beef and bean with green chilies. A hot red one, too. They are as delicious as a burrito from a microwave can be.

I am in no rush today, as I want to be sure that I don’t try to go too far today. I need to be serious about pacing myself for the first week. 16 is my target. There are two campgrounds at that distance that I can choose from.

Today’s weather is nice. It is not cool and it is not hot. It is mostly overcast and it will stay this way all day. I was expecting hot, but I will consider overcast a win.

The trail snakes around an industrial area on a gravel path for about a mile. Then it turns into full on rail trail. This will be the treadway for the entire day.

The trail crosses many roads, but none of them are busy with traffic. The scenery changes from forest to corn fields to meadow to riverside all day.

The bugs are not bad in most sections, but a few areas are thick with mosquitoes and deer flys. I decide it’s time to try Mr Dragonfly. I have a rubber dragonfly that I can screw on the top of my tent pole sticking up out of my pack.

After an hour, I declare him ineffective, but I like his company so I will keep him for now. The bugnet is on my head for about 20 percent of the day.

I pass thru a small town with no services at about noon. I want to cook soon, but I only have enough water left for cooking and not for drinking. There is a park by a dam in about 2 miles which I should be able to hit by 1. I will cook lunch there.

As luck would have it, there are apple trees along the side of the trail here. They are small and not yet fully ripe, but they will quench my thirst. I eat five of them and I am no longer thirsty or hungry. Perfect timing.

Various flowers line the trail. This patch had two completely different flowers that were identical colors. I took pictures of about a dozen flowers, but I will spare you the drudgery of having to see them all.

The park at the dam was nice. The water was not so nice. It tasted like mud. I had clean water to cook with and drank about a liter of pond water flavored with a nuun electrolyte tablet. Lime mud tastes OK.

It was just a few more miles to the campground, but the camp store was disappointing. They had ice cream and literally nothing else. No water, no soda, no snacks. Ice cream sandwich it is. I was hoping for a Gatorade.

The campground was a good call. I was tired when I arrived, but revived quickly. If I had stopped for a break and not checked in, I would have been tempted to keep going another hour or two. It is only 4 pm and plenty of daylight left.

I look to see what is 16 miles ahead for tomorrow and it turns out to be the center of a town with a haunted hotel. If the Delta trips can book a room for tomorrow, then I am there. I check out the Delta website and they can book it for $108 with a $100 coupon and now I have a room with a shower for tomorrow night exactly 16 miles from here. I don’t have to worry about pushing too far tomorrow. And the hotel is cheaper than this campsite, which also has a shower.

Emotion of the day, Excitement

It is exciting to have the first full day today. The rail trail is nice. The scenery is nice. The fact that I have a rock solid plan to not start out too fast is icing on the cake. The overcast skies were nice, too.

I have well over a thousand miles left to hike, but it is exciting to be back on trail again. Only 22.8 complete, but that is still exciting to me. It’s a brand new experience on each different trail.

I was only able to get three hours of sleep last night. It took me an hour to fall asleep last and my body just can’t sleep past 7 A.M.

I didn’t really eat properly yesterday and it was such a long day that I was pretty hungry this morning, so I ate a large breakfast. I have many chores to do this morning and I need to get an early start.

The first chore is getting the package that I mailed to myself. The package is not at the front desk, but after a few questions here and there, the clerk and I figure out that it might still be in the mailbox out by the road. When we checked the mailbox, it is indeed sitting there waiting for me. So the first problem is resolved.

The next order of business is getting fuel for my stove. There is a sporting goods store two blocks away, so I decide to try there first. As a luck would have it they do have the fuel and they also have dehydrated dinners. So I pick up a lasagna and a pair of sunglasses since I forgot to bring mine. Chore two and three resolved.

Next up is to see about shoes. One pair of shoes is not going to last for the entire trail. There is a shoe store nearby that carries a brand that I’ve been wanting to try, and it’s only two blocks in the other direction. So I go there next.

They measure my feet, which I know will have them trying to put me into shoes that are too small. That is exactly the case, and they finally give in and try the sizes I was asking for. They fit much better, so I buy a pair and they will ship them to me later up the trail. Chore four is resolved.

Chore five is to find lunch and with a barbecue restaurant across the street from the hotel, this one is easy to solve. Chore five complete.

The only chore left for the day is to catch my shuttle which has been arranged for 4:30, but it is only one o’clock. So the next chore is to try and sleep for an hour or two. That chore fails, but at least I got some time to rest. I’m packed and ready to go buy four o’clock. So I run to the Starbucks across the street to grab a quick cup of coffee.

The shuttle arrives right on time, and it’s a quick one-hour drive to the trailhead. We talk about camping and hiking for the next hour and it goes by very quickly. Before I know it, I am on the Eastern terminus waving goodbye to the shuttle driver.

For such a horrible travel day yesterday, the first day of the actual trip has gone far better than anticipated. Other than not getting a nap, all of the other chores were far easier than I thought. I didn’t have to go three and a half miles to Cabela’s for stove fuel and everything I needed was within two blocks. I picked the perfect hotel site to stay at.

The Eastern terminus is quite nice. There is a very large parking area with one picnic bench and the obligatory terminus monument. Off into the distance you can see lake Michigan and a huge meadow far below the bluff where the terminus is located. I take a few pictures and then head off into the woods. My trip has officially begun At 5:45.

The first three miles are through the Potawatomi State Park. It is heavily forested and offers views of the lake for most of its length. I guess technically this is Green Bay and not lake Michigan.

There is just enough undulation to the trail to slow you down a little bit. If the entire trail were like this it would be absolutely perfect. I am not looking forward to so many bike trails and road walks that are totally flat. When it’s easy, you tend to go too fast and push too hard. I need to fight that urge for at least the first week so that my body can acclimate slowly without abusing it.

The next three miles are road walking through the town of Sturgeon Bay. The sun is setting, so it is a beautiful hike through the city next to many restaurants and little stores. My destination is a Quality Inn on the other side of town. I badly need to catch up on sleep, as I’ve had a low-grade headache all day from my body being so out of whack from the travel day.

This is Wooly in downtown Sturgeon Bay.

There is a very large Kwik Stop next to the hotel so that is where I will get dinner. A pizza wrap and a chicken sandwich with chocolate milk is the perfect dinner for tonight. Now to see if I can get some sleep. Real sleep.

Emotion of the day, Elation

Today couldn’t have been any better. I completed all of my chores within a quarter mile of the hotel. The shuttle went perfectly, and I am actually starting this trip earlier than I expected.

The trail, Including the road walks, is actually really nice. And I’ve not had to combat mosquitoes or horse flies yet, so I am elated to have a far better than expected first day. I know the misery is coming at some point, but for today everything is perfect.

I love travel and I love planes. But plane travel in the afternoons in the summer in the south is like playing Russian roulette.

The plan was a 50 minute flight from Gainesville to Atlanta, then a 2 hour flight to Green Bay after a 1 hour layover. Leave at 8 pm, arrive at 11:30 pm. That’s not what unfolded.

The Gainesville ground crew was great. They knew a storm was rolling in, so they had the arrival emptied and turned over in ten minutes. Our flight left 5 minutes early. Atlanta was clear, so they let us take off. A great start.

Nearing Atlanta is where things turned sour. A huge thunderhead was over the airport and we had to do circles to wait for the storm to clear. You could see dozens of other planes in the air doing the same thing .

After an hour of circles, we were running low on fuel, so we were diverted to Augusta to land and refuel. We sat on the tarmac in Augusta for an hour to wait out the storm. The fuel truck was right out my window so I could see the fuel gauge. We took on 859 gallons of fuel. There went any profit on the flight.

My connecting flight was also delayed two hours, so I should still be able to make my connection. But Delta kept trying to put me on a flight the following morning. I kept having to reject their recommendations to keep the original flight. Once we took off from Augusta, I could only pray we make it in time and Delta did not keep trying to rebook me.

Forty minutes later we were on the ground in Atlanta and the weather was great. And I had 25 minutes until my connection was due to depart. I knew I needed to go to the F concourse, but which one did I arrive on?

The answer was C. That is in the middle of the airport and F is at the far end with international flights. If I can catch the train, I can make it. It is about 12:30 at this point and the trains are not going to F concourse. I will have to walk. Quickly.

Walking at a 4 mph pace and using all the moving walkways helped. The F concourse is an eternity away. I make it about one minute before the door closes. I am the last one to board the plane. The plane is pretty full, but I can tell that the empty seats are others who did not make the connection.

After all the delays, the flight arrives in Green Bay three hours late at 2:30 in the morning. Now to get to the hotel. Uber, Lyft, or taxi. Any guesses?

I try to book an Uber as soon as the plane lands. Uber wants $65 for a 2.9 mile fare. No. Let’s try Lyft. They want $12. Bingo. By the time I get to the loading area, not a single taxi is around. It takes ten minutes to get a driver and the rate has gone up to $21. I’ll still take it.

The 11 minute eta takes 20 minutes. Then another couple tries to snag my ride. Do they not know how Lyft works? Five minutes later I am at the hotel. It is 3 am but my body thinks it is 4 am. I normally wake up at 5 am, so my body is wrecked.

Now to see how long it takes me to fall asleep.

Emotion of the day, Exhaustion

After an 8 mile walk in the morning, packing up everything, and dinner with Karen, I already had a full day. By the time the plane was in the air, I would normally be going to bed.

Now add 8 hours of travel, and I am exhausted. It’s one of those feelings of being so tired that you can’t sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, too.