I made one mistake last night while setting up my tent. It was before dark and the security lights hadn’t come on yet. But as it got later I discovered that security light was shining right in my tent. I tried to cover my eyes but it was too bright. So at about 10:00 p.m. I got out of my tent and shifted it to point the other way. After that modification I slept well.

I was up and out by 6:30 which was about what I was hoping for. I was able to exit the back end of the park which led me directly to the road I needed to be on to leave town. The first road was a busy county highway but I was only on it a little over a mile.

The next eight miles would be barely traveled back roads. In fact the entire eight miles I counted only 12 cars. The last mile into Westfield was just the opposite. It was heavily trafficked with a car about every 10 or 15 seconds. I stayed in the weeds the entire time.

I was dragging a bit this morning so I went ahead and drank the coffee drink I bought the campground at about 9:00. It was a Snickers cold brew and it really did taste like a Snickers. My breakfast this morning had a lot of sugary things. And I think I can detect a pattern that the more sugar I have in the morning The more I will crash and get sleepy within a few hours. Eating more sugary things when sleepy doesn’t help, either. Eating fatty things does. I will have to be more selective about my breakfast choices from now on.

The only plus to Westfield is the many convenience stores and fast food. I decided to try Arby’s. I don’t think I’ve been to an Arby’s in 20 or 30 years. I was surprised by their menu. They have quite a wide variety of choices. I got a Greek gyro wrap and a jamoka shake. They had outlets to charge your devices but I wasn’t there long enough to get more than about 10% on my phone.

One of the other customers in the restaurant recognized me hiking in to town and asked about my hike. He was aware of the Ice Age trail but didn’t realize it covered the entire state. He also didn’t realize it had so much road walking.

I bought a new Gatorade before leaving town but forgot to buy a coffee drink. I realized my error about a mile out of town but it wasn’t worth going back. I can make instant coffee after all. I just want to conserve my water as much as possible since this is a long road stretch without any water sources.

The afternoon road walk is almost as desolate as the morning except for maybe a mile on one busy county road. The morning was not too hot. It was mostly overcast and there was a decent breeze. But now the afternoon has very few clouds and the sun is out in a vengeance. The forecast said it was supposed to be 88° today and I believe them.

I am getting tired again around 2:00 which is normal. I put my coffee and sugar in the remainder of my water bottle and hike another 30 minutes to let it mix itself. I took a little break on the side of the road to drink the coffee and it definitely gave me the energy I needed for the rest of the afternoon.

I finally hit the park which marks the end of the bifurcation exactly on time at 5:00. Since I left Devil’s Lake State Park a few days ago, I have been hiking the Eastern route and now I finally met back up with the Western route. We have rejoined.

The park itself is not much to look at. There is a kiosk and a bench and a post with a blaze on it leading out into a meadow. I stopped for about 15 minutes and have a pre-dinner break. I ate some dry salami and some buttered bread and a few cookies.

I have just enough water to make the last five miles to the next water source where I think I’m going to be camping near the interstate. I have a Gatorade which is my margin of error if I end up stopping before the water source. I will have to cook with my water and drink the Gatorade with dinner Then I will camel up like crazy in the morning because tomorrow is supposed to be the hottest day of the entire hike.

My plan B was to try and stealth camp in this park if I didn’t have the energy to make it to the interstate. The North end of the Park has a set of woods that have absolutely perfect stealth sites. If it were later in the day, I probably would have stopped here. But it is only 5:30 so I can make my intended stop well before dark.

After leaving the park, the trail skirts along a nice lake. There are lake houses lining every square foot of the shoreline. But there is one public beach access section, but it is jam-packed full of people occupying every seat at every picnic bench. They have a pit toilet but no running water. If I want to get water from here it will have to be from the lake. And there are two many people swimming in the lake for me to want to drink from it right now. I will just have to go to my planned stopping point to get water.

The remaining 4 miles of road walk isn’t too bad. The shoulder is decent but there a lot of cars the first mile. After that it thinned out considerably.

The road walk just ends at a dead end where the trail head begins. It’s only a short distance to the intersection between the trail crossing the highway and the side trail going to the rest area. I don’t really need anything at the rest area so I just head on down the trail.

When I get to the culvert that goes under the highway, it has a stream running through it. There is an arrow pointing into the culvert meaning we are supposed to walk down the ditch inside the culvert. I’m not quite up to that now. I read comments in the trail guide saying people walked to the rest area then walked back up the exit ramp for it to cross the road instead of going through the culvert. So I go back to the trail junction and go to the rest area facilities.

They have an ice cold bottle filling station so I go ahead and fill all my bottles and camel up right there in the air conditioning. I don’t really need to use the restroom and I don’t really need anything from the vending machines. But the cold water and air conditioning is very nice.

The walk back the exit ramp is very brisk. Pedestrians are not allowed on interstates so what I’m doing is not exactly legal. But I make it to the point where the road crosses the river and head down to the other side of the culvert. I have to cross a fence and then scale down a steep incline to get to where the trail is. The fence is very beat up so you can tell a ton of people have been doing this.

When I finally get down there I see that there was a concrete walkway on the side of the culvert. So this entire little exercise was for nothing, other than to get fresh clean cold water.

By now it is 8:00 and the sun is down and it is starting to get dark. I need to make enough distance between me and the interstate so that I will be able to sleep. And I only have about 20 minutes of light left.

I find a perfect spot which is still in the state owned land, so I make camp as quickly as I can. I lose the foot of the tent pole in the weeds and it takes me nearly 10 minutes to find it. I had to pull out my flashlight to find it. It had fallen underneath the tent so that’s why it was so hard to find.

The mosquitoes are not too bad but the routine is to get inside of the tent as quickly as possible. But the problem is I’m still hot and sweating from the exertion to get here. It would be better to hang out outside the tent for at least 30 minutes to cool off.

But I changed into my sleeping clothes anyway and they are swampy within a few minutes. I will have to dry them out tomorrow afternoon. Over an hour later I am still sweating.

Emotion of the day, foolish

Emotion of the day, Foolish

After an entire day of boring road walking with the only excitement being eating a gyro, the end of the day’s excitement sure picked up.

The trail leading down to the culvert running under the interstate was very muddy. I didn’t get close enough to see that there was a concrete walkway and I’m not sure I could have gotten to it without getting sopping wet anyway.

But after detouring over a mile to go to the rest area and back only to find that there was a walkway made me feel very foolish. I wasted a half an hour of daylight.

I could see tons of tracks leading down the embankment from the highway and the fence was in pretty bad shape so I know I am not the only fool out here in the woods.