There were just a few drops of rain last night, but this morning the tent is dry as a bone. The tent is a little dirty on the bottom because I had to set it up on dirt, but it is nice having it dry for a change. I am able to get up and out by 6:20.

Much if the morning is walking in dewey meadows again. But the grass is well trimmed and my feet are not getting too soaked. One stretch has a lot of weeds to the side but my umbrella can push them away without getting me too wet.

Most of the day is going to be road walks between four and six miles that lead from trail section to trail section. Most of the trail sections are less than 2 miles long.

But the first road walk leads me back into the same town I left last night. I will be within about 5 blocks of the IAT headquarters again. Are you actually okay with that today because I need to refill my water bottles. Luckily I find one only two blocks in that direction that I can refill from.

Back to road walking again. My feet are damp but not too wet. I have about 3 mi to the 1st trail section. This section is referred to as the lollipop because you hike out a trail, do a loop, then return on the same trail back to the exact spot you started at from the road.

I get the bright idea to do this as a slack pack. I go in the trail only about a 10th of a mile and then stash my pack in the meadow. I then lock the mail and a half loop without my pack. I carry only my phone in my wallet. Those two items never leave my side.

Walking the loop without a pack is a real treat. It hardly feels like working at all and goes much quicker. When I return to my pack I head to the parking lot but I find a bench to rest on and have a little snack.

The next road walk is about 4 mi to another park. This time we enter one end of the park and then exit about a half a mile at the road. I am tired by the time I get to the park so I go ahead and eat lunch even though it’s not quite noon yet.

This is where the pissed off part comes. I have my pack leaning against one of the posts and I am a few feet away with my shoes off putting some butter on a tortilla. A guy drives in and lets out his dogs. I hear him yelling at one and the other one comes over and sniffs me in the face. He is a cute German short haired pointer and he has a ball in his mouth.

He takes his dogs and heads out to the dog park. I finished my mini lunch and start packing up. I go to check my phone and notice that it is slightly wet. Then the worst realization comes over me. That jackass let his dog pee on my pack and didn’t even bother to tell me about it. That’s the pissed on in the pissed off within a span of about 3 minutes.

The dog has peed on my right strap where I keep my phone and did a pretty good number on it. I try to rinse it off with some water but I don’t have much left. I have to hike to the other side of the park to get water. So I don my dog pee smelling pack and begin hiking.

It takes about 30 minutes to get to the other side and it is a well-stocked facility. They have flush toilets and an outdoor fountain and bottle filling station. I fill my bottles and dry and wash the strap a little better. It’s totally soaking wet but it’s really hard to rinse a foam strap with all the crazy webbing on it. I wonder how long it’s going to take for this smell to get out.

The next road walk is a pretty long one – over five miles. And the whole time I am steaming mad. Why didn’t the guy have the decency tell me what his dog did. I was sitting 5 feet away.

The next park section is another out and back returning to nearly the same spot. I am still pissed off and think about skipping this section. But I have plenty of time to still get to my campsite so I might as well do the slack pack thing again.

I am so glad I went ahead and did this loop. It goes by an old homestead that had an apple orchard all around it. I am surrounded by dozens of apple trees and they are of many different varieties. Every time I see an apple that looks different I go ahead and try one. Some of them were mediocre but several of them were really outstandingly delicious.

The other highlight of this little section is another DCA camping spot. It actually has a trail register in it so I go ahead and sign it. It also has an interesting bench arrangement for cooking food with stoves. It’s like a his and hers kitchen.

It is back to more road walking to the next section, so I drink the Starbucks coffee I packed out yesterday. this should feel me for the next few hours.

The next trail section is another out and back that returns to almost the same place and is almost 2 miles. I still have plenty of time so I go ahead and do the full loop. I have been able to keep to the task of hiking every trail mile despite my foul mood.

It goes out along a meadow to the end of a ridge line. At the end of the ridge it climbs to the top and then returns on the top of the ridge. The views are nice but the behavior of the dog owner is still consuming me. After all, I have a constant reminder entering my nose.

One bonus to this section is two houses that have set up water stations. One house just had a small Ice Age Trail sign with a gallon of water sitting in front of it. The other one had a sign out by the road pointing to a garden area they have set up with chairs and a cooler full of water. I stopped at the second one and had a drink of water.

The last section for the day is to hike 1.6 miles up to the DCA campsite. This will make for a 28 plus mile-day and I will get to the camp site by about 6:30. I took several breaks today so this is good timing.

Tomorrow should be a much better day. I will get to eat breakfast in a town just 3 mi away. And then I get to ride the Merrimac ferry. Then I end up at a campsite when I will decide if I want to camp or try to Uber into town for a hotel. It all depends on how my mood goes tomorrow.

Emotion of the day, Pissed off

If not for that dog in his owner, today would have been a perfect day. That happened a little after 11:00 and really did sour the entire afternoon.

The guy could have at least said something. Hey my dog just peed on your backstrap you might want to wash it before you put it on. Not a word.

And even though all of the out and back trail sections were annoying, they were all nice sections of trail. I really enjoyed the apple fiesta because it came at the perfect time of day when I was getting a little hot and thirsty. I think I ate 7 or 8 apples. An apples have a lot of fluid and sugar in them. Nature’s Gatorade.