I got up around 6:00 a.m. and was hiking by 7:15. There is a creek nearby but with my earplugs I couldn’t hear any of it last night. But now this morning I hear things falling in the woods all around me. As best I can tell it’s pine cones falling out of some of the evergreen trees.

It took a little longer to get rolling today because I needed to filter water. Normally it’s something I would do at night but I was ready to get in the tent and lock the mosquitoes out.

The trail today is much like yesterday. It is some single track but mostly double track. There are a few mud puddles caused by the vehicles using this road, but they are easy to get around. There are also an abundance of beaver dams around here too. Most of them are easy to navigate the slushy parts but one does manage to get both shoes slightly wet.

These beavers sure do make a mess. They’ll go after a tree two feet in diameter and try and knock it down just to get at the branches that they want to know off and use for their dam. But it seems like most of the large trees get hung up in other trees and they never get to the branches they’re looking for so they just go for another tree. So basically the woods around here look like beavers just like cutting down trees for no reason.

One particular Creek has a very high ridge where the trail is looking down nearly a hundred feet to the creek. The beavers are not discouraged here. They are cutting trees down at the top of the ridge then dragging them all the way down the slope to the creek. It looks like a toboggan run at a snow park. There’s a long crescent trench running from the woods all the way down the slope to the creek.

They seem to really like Aspen’s and Birches. I guess it’s because these trees tend to be long and slender and they like them for making their dams. Today was the first time I could actually find one of their lodges in the middle of the pond.

At about 11:30 I come to a county park that has a really nice pavilion made out of logs. It has about six picnic tables inside of it so I pick one with a good breeze coming in from the windows and have lunch. There is an electrical outlet here, but I am charged well enough to make it to town without a top up. But sure is nice to have the option.

The hand pump doesn’t seem to work here which is okay because I don’t need any more water. What I filtered this morning is enough for the entire day, including making coffee. I finished off the Dunkin’ donuts at 10:30 but I will need to make another one around 2:00 or 2:30. Today will be Starbucks but with no sugar.

I also noticed today that the colors of fall are officially here. For the last few days I have seen some yellows and reds show up, but in this area the forest is brightly yellow. There is some red but it is predominantly yellow here. I don’t really find any oranges for some reason. Different kinds of trees I guess.

I can see signs of some very freshly cut trees. And by very freshly I mean today. I can even smell bar oil from a chainsaw at a couple of the sites. I saw a Subaru parked down one of the dirt roads, and I saw three vehicles at the park, one of which had an IAT license plate and a can of fuel in front of it. I bet those were the cars for the workers that are on the trail right now doing maintenance.

The funny thing is, all afternoon I never saw a single person. So somehow we must have crossed paths and not actually seen each other. Oh well, no human sightings today.

The trails finally end at a small neighborhood and the road walking begins. The road changes between crushed rock and pavement a few times. It is 3 miles to the highway where I will leave the connecting route and road walk into Birchwood.

They use the numbering system for their roads up here. But they must have a really anal retentive postmaster. It’s not 28th Street but 28th and 11/16th Street. This entire county seems to name their streets like this. It is very unnerving.

When I get to the highway at 3:30, I am delighted to find an ATV road that parallels the highway. There is a decent shoulder on the highway, but there is a lot of traffic today. And in the two miles into town I only had to deal with three ATVs. I’ll take the ATV road any day.

As the road turns to come into downtown, I can see the Dollar General and gas stations on the other side of town that I am planning to go to. But the B&B is up main Street a few blocks from downtown. I probably need to go there first and check in before checking out town.

Main Street is really only about three blocks long. And in the last block I am excited to find out that there is a laundromat just two blocks from the B&B. It is not listed in Google maps so I am beyond happy to see it.

When I get to the B&B, it is really neat looking. There are decorations everywhere in the yard. As I enter the building the inside decorations are just as ornate. I wander around a little bit and see one of the rooms has a box of shoes on it. Hooray this must be my room.

I finally find the owner on the back porch and she asks if I am her hiker. And I respond yes I am. She says I am the only guest tonight so I can actually pick any room I want in the whole building. The one I originally wanted was called The Bears Den, but the website said it was in the lower Lodge and I wasn’t sure what that meant. It turns out it just means the basement level of the building. That suits me fine because it is much cooler downstairs than in the main area and I would prefer it to be cooler.

As soon as I have everything loaded into my room, the chores begin. Number one, shower. Number two, laundry. Number three, very small resupply at the grocery instead of the Dollar General. They have probiotic soda which I have never seen so I try a root beer. It tastes like a root beer so I’m not sure I can really say if I like probiotic root beer or not.

After the laundry is done then it is the major chore of the day – dinner. There is a barbecue restaurant open but it is way outside of town near the Dollar General. The one downtown that looks good is cash only and I don’t want to burn the rest of my cash so that one is out. The one across the street from that one just looks like a bar. And there is a pizza place just two blocks from downtown. I decided to try that one because they say they have calzones and there’s no way they could screw up a calzone with their Midwest crust, right?

I ordered chicken wings as an appetizer and a calzone for dinner. They screwed up the wing order and brought me boneless wings by mistake and they are making the proper wings to replace them. I eat a few of them and I taste fine but I’m waiting for the ones with bones that I prefer much better. It was worth the wait because they were much better.

The calzone, however, has been midwestified. It is the same cracker crust, which is horrible. They also have red sauce inside the calzone and only slivers of mozzarella cheese and no ricotta. This does not even resemble a calzone. I end up pulling half the crust off and basically just eating the toppings and dousing it with grated Parmesan cheese to give it some sort of cheese flavor. Lesson learned – never order pizza in the midwest under any circumstances. Everything else is fair game, including seafood.

Now that the primary chores are done, it is time for the secondary chores. All my clothes need to go in their proper stuff sacks. The food bag needs to be reorganized and repacked. And I need to package these boneless chicken wings into something that will travel well tomorrow. And don’t forget blogging.

Emotion of the day, Relaxed

I only had 22 miles to go today, so there was no point in rushing to get up and no point in killing myself to get into town. On my reservation I told them that I expected to be in town by 5:30 but it was actually before 4:30.

I took a nice long leisurely lunch at the pavilion. I took one break in the morning and one break in the afternoon both for coffee. I even sat on a bench in town for about 30 minutes to cool off and dry some of the sweat before I ended up going to the B&B.

Except for a few hills here and there, and a few beaver ponds to dodge, it was basically walking back roads or paved roads. So it was a nice relaxing day of hiking.