Author: Jim

I got up early this morning, started going through my routine, and I still couldn’t get going before 6:20. This seems to be some sort of magical time that I just can’t beat. Today I decided if I go 30 miles or 38 miles for the day. Leaving 20 minutes late means there’s one mile less that I can do today.

I have been lucky lately with finding trees to camp under. Packing the tent up in the morning means it is only dirty but not wet. The hardest part about packing up is picking slugs off the tent before I roll it.

The trail is pretty hilly this morning. The coach at the snow park warned me that this was going to be an annoying little section. He was right but it’s only about a half a mile of annoying ups and downs. There are far more lakes than it looked like on the map. And they have to take us by every single one of them.

Within the first 2 hours of the morning all of the trail sections are done for the day. My first Target is the town of Rosholt. It is just over 10 miles from where I can’t and has a Dollar General and might have some open restaurants.

The roads are pretty desolate and it is not bad hiking. At the town of Alden I am turning West to go into Rosholt, instead of continuing North. After going to town I will turn north and rejoin the suggested route that is it is making its way west.

The road into town is busy but there is four foot of paved shoulder and 2 ft of gravel beyond that. Within a mile it changes to a sidewalk all the way through town. I like sidewalks.

I first come to a gas station and need to rest a little bit. I sit outside and take my shoes and socks off to let my feet dry from the morning dew. There is no point in going in the store. Anything I need to buy in there I can buy at the Dollar General for half the price.

There is one restaurant in town called Granny’s place that is open. I head there and see that they are feeding the football team out behind the building. Inside the building there are only one or two tables occupied. I order a breakfast skillet and it hits the spot.

I keep walking through town to go to the Dollar General at the other end. I buy some granola bars, beef jerky, and some chips for the walk today. I also decide to try the frozen dinner thing again so I buy another Michelina’s. I also buy a pint of ice cream which gets consumed quickly.

Now I am back to road walking. As soon as I turn north I will be on the same road that the official route merges into. The scary part is that I will be on the same road for 4 hours. For solid hours, no turns, no bins, no change.

This road ends up putting me to sleep. So the solution for that is coffee of course. The Dollar General did not have anything convenient so I make another Cafe Bustelo. I will need to count how many I have left to make sure I don’t run out before the end of the trail.

I have pretty good cell service so I go ahead and check to see if the hotel I want in Antigo is still booked on the day I need. And just my luck they now have an availability.

Now is decision time. If I still want to try and do 38 miles today I can get the room a day earlier for a cheaper rate. But looking at how far I have left to go I don’t think it is possible for me to do 38 miles before dark. Sticking to the original schedule would still make for a 30 mi day. And it looks like I only have time for about 34 miles today.

So the decision is made. Book The room for Saturday and stick to the original schedule. I remember that I have a free night certificate so I am able to use that and not burn up 40,000 points on one room. That makes me happy. Today is looking better.

Or at least today would look better if I didn’t have to still look at this same road for another hour. I really want to get off this road.

Looking at the weather forecast it has changed just a little bit. Instead of just raining all night, it looks like it’s going to rain around 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. and then midnight onward. I doubt I can make the campsite before the rain starts.

And that is exactly what happens. I am a mile and a half in the campsite which is 30 minutes of hiking when the rain begins. I don’t want everything to be soaking wet because my pack is part of my pillow system. Rain at the end of the day is never fun.

But I got lucky this time. As I am wrapping my rain jacket around the pack to keep it dry I noticed that there looks like a restaurant up ahead. I quickly hike there and see that it is indeed a restaurant that wasn’t listed on the map. They have an awning on the side of their building so it looks like a great place to wait out the rain. It’s not supposed to last more than an hour.

But since it is 6:00 anyway I decide to go ahead and eat dinner here. It was a good choice, because I am able to charge my phone and battery bank. And in addition the rain stops about 20 minutes before I leave. Perfect timing.

This last road has been a four mile chunk on a busy highway. It is full of traffic of people coming home from work. But I only have a little over a mile left from the restaurant. The bad part is the shoulders are now soaking wet. So I have to stop and carefully walk down the shoulder about every minute for another car. It is the most annoying mile of the day.

I finally get to the trail section. It is less than a mile of trail but it has a designated campsite. The bad part is the map shows this to be swamp. I hope there will be dry camping under trees and not in grass.

I do see swampy areas around me, but the trail is high and dry among pine trees. This is exactly what I’m looking for. The designated site doesn’t really have flat camping areas. So I get a little creative and pitch my tent on the side of the approach trail. I will have some protection from the rain tonight.

Since I just ate dinner at a restaurant I don’t have to do any cooking tonight. Once everything is set up it is go straight to blogging. The cell signal is not great but it’s good enough to get the text going. But the images are a bit slow and sometimes through errors. But I have a freshly charged phone so what’s with retrying them so I don’t have to do it later.

That has been one thing I enjoy about doing this blog. and because I forced myself to write the blog every single day, I won’t fall behind and end up quitting the blog. Even if I have no cell signal I will dictate to an email and just paste the email at some future date. Pictures are harder and take about 25% of the total time it takes to write one of these blogs. But typically they take about an hour as long as the cell signal is good.

Emotion of the day, Relief

This trail is not like most hiking trails. On a trail like the AT or the PCT, I basically just figure out how many miles per day I want to go and I go that many miles plus or minus a few. There will usually be campsites nearby or I can just stealth camp in many situations.

But with this Trail the road walks dictate when you can stop. It makes it much harder to set a schedule and nearly impossible to alter it. That’s the situation I was in trying to book a room in Antigo.

based on the distances I can go in a day, I only have a very few set of options. In this 5-day stretch of trail there are only seven places to camp. That doesn’t give you a lot of options.

So with the Labor Day weekend looking up the one hotel I needed on the one day I needed it, this has been a nightmare section logistically.

I have been checking availability every day in the hopes that a cancellation would open up a room. I got very lucky today. I know I have a room booked. I don’t have to blast out a 38 mile burner. Or I don’t have to figure out how to slow down for a full day.

I got what I needed on the day that I need it and that is a huge relief.

I slept really well last night. It was probably the best night of sleep on the entire trip so far. I woke up at 5:00 so I started reorganizing and packing things early. I still have not gone through my food bag to see if I need food or not. If I do need more food then I have to wait till 8:30 for Aldi to open. That means I will probably not get to start hiking until 9:30 or possibly later.

Breakfast at the hotel is probably the worst of the trip so far. It is either Cheerios or Raisin Bran cereal and bagels. No protein whatsoever. And the orange juice machine shoots out water that isn’t even colored orange. The coffee machine is not any better. It ends up shooting out something that looks weaker than iced tea. It has a faint coffee flavor but that’s about it.

After going through my food bag and reorganizing everything, I figured out that I don’t really need to buy any more food. But the Subway next door opens in about 5 minutes, so that would be something delicious to pack out for lunch. So I go grab a sub and wrap it tightly and put it next to my umbrella.

I tried Uber and Lyft again just to see if by chance they have drivers that work the morning just not the evenings. No such luck, but the taxi is now open because it is after 8:00. I call for the taxi and by the time I get my pack and go to the front, he is already there. Way faster service than last night.

I am at the trailhead and hiking before 8:30. This is far earlier than I was expecting to be able to get out of this town and that is a good thing.

The first few miles are all walking in grassy areas adjacent to fields.I purposely wanted my damp socks on because I knew I was going to get wet this morning. I am not soaking wet, but my feet are definitely far from dry.

The morning is a mix of 2 miles of road 2 miles of trail 2 miles of road, etc.. On the second or third roadwalk I can see two walkers way ahead in the distance. By the time we are close enough to see each other, they are indeed hikers because they have backpacks and trekking poles.

It turns out they are The Honeymoon Hikers. They hiked the AT for their honeymoon several years ago. They have hiked many different trails including the Mountains to Sea trail which they said had the worst road walks they ever experienced. They have also thru hiked to the Appalachian trail four times.

We exchange emails because they have a complete list of all the trail Angels for all chapters. I only have the ones at the beginning in the end for getting shuttles to and from the trail. The list is massive and it will take a long time to sift through what I actually need. The hardest part is figuring out what section I am actually in at any given time.

They tell me the rest of the trail westward is quite desolate and they needed to rely on the trail angels quite frequently. They also said the trail is pretty wet in many places. I reciprocate on intel on the eastern side. After the 15 minute chat we part ways and they let me know of another hiker a day behind them named Eric.

I continue my road walk to the last trail section before it turns into a longer 10 plus mile road walk. It is 11:00 by the time I am just about done with the last trail section so I go ahead and stop and eat the first half of my sandwich. It is good, but not scrumptious.

By noon I am on the major road walk for the day. The roads all morning have been very desolate with only one car per hour in most cases. There are only two short sections on busy highways, but they pass by quickly.

I end up at a small bridge over a creek when it is time for the second half of the sandwich at 2:00. There is a concrete railing and it makes a great sitting spot to eat and take my shoes and socks off and let my feet dry.

My shoes are dry enough but the socks are still damp. I change into my dirty but dry socks hanging from the back of the pack before I leave.

I go ahead and mix my coffee, but I don’t drink it until 2:30. It is a Cafe Bustello plus a sugar packet. I am still amazed at how little time needs to elapse after drinking coffee and sugar before my energy level increases. 10 minutes is all it takes in most cases.

The weather all day has been divine. The temperature in the afternoon is almost identical to the temperature in the morning. There has been very heavy cloud cover all day, and I haven’t even seen the sun. This is perfect because the temperature probably never peaks above 72 or 73°. I only break a sweat on steep uphill sections. Most of the time I am cool and only barely clammy.

The big roadwalk section ends at a snow park. When I arrive it is full of 20 or 30 kids doing some sort of exercises. The leader of the group talks to me for 20 minutes or so and tells me about the various features in the snowpark that are available to Ice Age Trail hikers. The main thing I am interested in is a water. I started from the hotel with two and a half liters and I still have a half a liter. I have hiked 23 miles and only drink two liters of water. That’s how cool it is today. And that also included making coffee.

After I get my water bottles filled, the caretaker drives around and it’s time to chat with him. I chat with him for at least 30 minutes. He tells me some of the history of the park and how he had to convince the snow park to solicit the IAT to bring the trail into the park 30 years ago. We talked about all sorts of topics – the space shuttle, real estate, IT technology, and of course hiking and skiing.

Other than water and electrical outlets, the main attraction for IAT hikers is the shelter one mile up the trail. It has electrical lights and outlets. I will go check it out, but I’m planning on trying to go a little further.

I have spent an hour talking to people so far, but there’s still plenty of daylight left. When I get to the shelter there is another hiker with his hammock strung up inside of it. The Honeymooners said there is another hiker named Eric behind them and this is indeed Eric. In fact he already knows my name so that Honeymooners have let him know about me heading his direction.

Eric and I spend at least another half hour talking. He was considering hiking the Florida Trail so we talk about that for much of the time and how it is both similar and different to the Ice Age trail.

It is now close to 7:30 and I only have about 1 hour of daylight left. I was trying to go three more miles but it’ll probably be closer to two. I need to make sure I can get to an area that isn’t private property so that I can camp.

I am hiking it a really fast pace at this point. I tend to do that late at night just from the adrenaline. But I am so well rested from my three long conversations that I’m cool and don’t want to work up a sweat. I tried my best to slow down but it is nearly impossible. My body just wants to hike fast.

By the time I find my camping spot I have worked up a little bit of a sweat. So after I set up my tent I immediately go find a big rock to start cooking dinner on. It is essentially dark now, and I only need the flashlight for very delicate things. Most of my cooking I can just do in the dark.

I am trying to spend as much time as possible outside of the tent to cool down before jumping in. There are a few mosquitoes but not too many. At least not enough to drive me into the tent.

I only have mashed potatoes for dinner and I am still trying to perfect making the potatoes in the same bag they come in. When you pour two cups of water into it, there is only a half an inch of room at the top of the bag so you have to stir carefully. You also have to stir thoroughly because all the special flavorings are at the bottom of the pack. This is Wisconsin cheese potatoes and I don’t want a lot of cheese dust at the end of my meal. Even though I think I have done a good job of thoroughly stirring the potatoes I discover towards the end that I indeed have big chunks of dry cheese wads.

I still need more practice on this particular cooking technique. I don’t want to cook the potatoes in the pot because I don’t want to have to clean the pot. I am in Bear country and I don’t want to have to hang everything I own in the trees at night. As long as I only boil water in my stove pot I won’t have to worry about it attracting bears.

Emotion of the day, Happiness

Today was a really good day of hiking. Even though it was a late start it was an hour earlier than I was expecting. That definitely made me happy and set the mood for the rest of the day.

The thick clouds kept all of the heat of the sun away. And yet it never once felt like it might possibly rain. The weather today couldn’t have been more perfect and that also made me happy.

And discovering that I had enough food to make my next stop without buying anything else also made me happy. Buying the sub to pack out was just icing on the cake and something else to bring happiness and joy to the day.

Seeing three more hikers and having good conversations with them also made me happy. Talking to the two men at the snow park was also fun. I had nearly two hours of breaks just talking with people, started 2 hours later than usual, and I still managed 26 or 27 miles.

The weather forecast for tomorrow has also changed from being hot to being low 70’s almost identical to today. Tomorrow will be at least 30 miles so that is really good news.

How can I not be happy about how today turned out?

After a hot day like yesterday any amount of rain is welcome. Even the amount where your pants to shoes are soaking wet for 2 hours, and your shoes never dry all day.

I woke up at a normal time but I had a headache and a little bit of nausea. My caffeine consumption yesterday was too late. Detouring to that campground messed that part up.

I am unable to eat more than one bite of granola. I will just have to eat breakfast along the trail as I walk. The headache isn’t actually too bad but it’s just annoying.

While I woke up at a normal time it took me much longer to pack up. It probably took me an hour and a half to get out of camp.

It rain pretty heavily during the night. But before the rain came it was extremely windy. I thought the wind was actually going to collapse my tent. But all it did was loosen some of the guidelines so it was a little more floppy than usual. But everything inside State dry, and the only evidence that I was there was a dry patch on the ground.

The trail was what you expect of an area going through private property. It was a mix of fields, pine groves, hardwood hammocks, all snaking around planted fields and intersecting millions of other trails. After about 4 MI of this it finally deposited me on a road. I will be road walking until mid-afternoon.

As soon as I get out into the open I can see but the clouds are brewing thick and black. The weather pattern is here seem to have the rain coming from the northwest. And the entire north-south and West skies are black. I know what is coming I just don’t know when.

I walked for nearly an hour on the roads before it started to rain. It rained consistently for around 30 to 40 minutes. The rain was heavy enough that within 10 minutes my pants were soaked. My shoes were soaked within 1 minute. I hike with an umbrella as my primary rain protection. It was too hot and not worth trying to put a raincoat on.

About 5 minutes after it started raining, I could see someone walking on the road towards me. As he got closer I could tell it was another hiker. When we met, I found out his name is Randy and he is Yo-Yo hiking this trail. Yo yo just means you hike the entire trail in one direction, and then turn around and hike it again the other direction. Bless his heart.

After our 2 minute conversation, we both keep walking in our particular directions. My first confirmed through hiker sighting and I am over halfway done with this trail. Maybe I will see one more before the end.

About 30 minutes after the rain stopped, I came to an intersection with a bar and grill that is friendly to hikers. The timing was perfect that I arrived at 11:00. What is not perfect is that they don’t open till 12:00. They have two chairs out front so I go ahead and take my shoes and socks off and wring out my socks as best I can. I put on my flip-flops while my shoes and socks dry.

I wring out everything else I can that is soaking wet. I had a pair of socks on the back of my pack that I should have put inside my pack before it rained. Now I have two pairs of white socks. I was also drying a shirt on top of the back which I knew would get soaked. I just consider this a pre-wash cuz it was a dirty shirt anyway. But it is now holding a significant amount of water that I need to wring out.

By the time I finish all of this, the owner drives up and says she’ll open up in a couple of minutes. So they opened up at 11:20 after all, just for me.

The only thing on the menu here at Raisin’ Cane’s is pizza. So pepperoni and sausage pizza it is. It’s the typical Midwest cracker pizza but it is pretty good. I eat all the one slice and grab a Pepsi to go. This will be my afternoon coffee.

I managed to water up, pack up, and head out by 12:30. This is actually earlier that I was expecting. I will be road walking for the next two and a half hours.

Only 30 minutes after leaving the bar, I am getting very sleepy. It is to the point where I actually want to just lay down on the road and go to sleep. It is too early for the Pepsi but it is actually hard to keep my eyes open. I drag on for another 45 minutes but finally have to drink the Pepsi at 1:45. It took about 30 minutes for me to stop feeling drowsy, but it worked.

The entire six or seven hours of road walking today was on extremely remote roads, except for one quarter mile stretch. Other than that quarter mile I don’t think I saw more than a dozen cars.

The road walking finally ended as I reached Hartman Creek State Park. The trail was a mix of meadows and hardwood forests. There were a million other trails intersecting the main trail here, many of them mountain bike trails. I didn’t bother taking any of the side trails to the campground area as I was only an hour from my ending point.

The ending point I am shooting for is highway 54 that leads into the town of Waupaca. After the hot days my clothes are pretty ripe. There is an econo Lodge in town that I can get on points. If I am able to get an Uber into town I will go ahead and book it.

It is just after 5:30 by the time I reach the parking area at the highway. That one Pepsi really did its job. I check Uber and Lyft at the same time to see if they have any drivers. After 15 minutes neither service located driver so I check Google maps to see if there is a taxi in town. Google says there are two taxis in town so I call one to arrange for a ride. With the ride secured I go ahead and book the room.

It takes almost 30 minutes for the taxi to show up. I enjoy talking to the taxi driver on the short ride into town. It would have been a 5.6 mile walk and that would have been a make or break deal for going into town. But how can you pass up a free room and laundry.

When I get to the hotel I find out that they don’t have guest laundry. Who has an indoor pool but no guest laundry? Econo Lodge, that’s who. Looks like a soap and shampoo laundry again.

After I shower I do laundry immediately. My clothes will need all the time they can get to dry in the air conditioning. Next up is dinner’s across the street at Culver’s, then shopping at Aldi. But unfortunately Aldi is closed by the time I get there.

I will assess the food I have left back at the room to see if I should wait for Aldi to open at 8:30 or just wing it. I have 25 miles to go tomorrow and getting a late start at 9:30 might make that a miserable day. But luckily it’s supposed to be very cool temperatures.

Emotion of the day, Relief

It was a day of multiple reliefs. My headache went away sometime in the late morning I’m not sure exactly when. You always know when one starts but it’s hard to tell when one stops.

The rain was a very welcome relief, too. It was so cool and refreshing that I thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn’t until after 2:00 p.m. that the sun came out and warmed things up a little bit, but I was mostly in wooded areas in the umbrella did the trick so I was never hot and miserable at all during the day.

It was a relief knowing that I didn’t have to wait a full hour for the restaurant to open. The 20 minutes it took was the time I needed to get all my clothes run out so there was no time lost at all.

It was a relief that maybe 15 miles of road walking had hardly any cars on it. And it was a relief knowing that there’s at least one other person out here through hiking this trail.

And it was a relief knowing that I was able to get a ride into town and do laundry even if I had to do it in a sink. It wasn’t the best day I’ve ever had in my life but it was a pretty good one.

It was definitely hot today. The only forecast I could get said it was supposed to be 92 but they were measuring only 89. It felt hotter than 90.

Even in the morning it wasn’t exactly cool but at least it was bearable. I can’t even get in the sleeping bag at night it’s so warm. I did manage to stop sweating around midnight though.

I got a later start and didn’t actually start hiking until after 7:00 I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to hike full speed today with the heat but at least right now it’s partially overcast skies so it’s not too hot yet. The weather app says it’s 78 but I think it’s hotter than that already.

The first few hours of the morning are mostly trail hiking with just short road walks to connect them together. The first excitement of the day is hiking through the small town of Richland. They have one bar but it is far too early for it to be open.

But even cooler than that I saw two Amish buggies on the way into town. The first one was an enclosed type that you normally think of with the whole family inside. The second one was an open garage with two girls driving it. Both buggies were friendly and waved back.

I’ve been seeing bizarre scratches on the road surface for the last few days and was wondering what caused it. I thought maybe it had to do with snowmobiles or some kind of winter thing around here. But nope I’m pretty sure it’s horse hooves scratching the pavement. I learned something new today.

After leaving the town the trail follows a creek. I had already filled up at the creek that was only an hour after where I camped so I was full. I also took the opportunity to wash the shirt I was wearing yesterday so I can use it for tomorrow. It has been hanging on the back of my pack drying as I walked down the road.

There weren’t too many meadows to walk through so my feet have stayed dry all morning. But by 9:00 the heat and the humidity have me completely drenched. It feels like noon. Luckily I am in woods for most of the walk but I still have to use my umbrella even in the woods to shade me from the sun that peaks through.

I took my lunch break on some really nice benches at a distributed campsite. A section hiker came walking by and asked if I was through hiking. We talked for about 10 minutes and then she moved on in the opposite direction. This is the first bonafide section hiker I have seen in at least a week. I still haven’t seen any others hikers that I could identify. I’ve only seen five people that head backpacks on period.

The place where I am to stop at for water this afternoon doesn’t look promising by the comments in the guidebook. It sounds like a swampy mess. I find a campsite only a mile off the trail and decide I will go there to try and get some snacks and water.

By the time I leave the official trail to go to the campground I have about 1 liter of water left. That means I have used two and a half liters since 8:00 this morning. This campground will be the last water that I am able to get until lunch time tomorrow. I will need to fill up everybody having potentially even buy another one.

When I get to the campground and go to the store, assign on the door says it is only open Friday Saturday and Sunday. Oh crap today is Monday. I will see the campground in the direction to return to the trail and find a picnic table near an outlet and a water spigot. I fill all my bottles there and begin charging my phone and battery. I drink as much water as I can tolerate and keep refilling the bottle. I want to make sure I am retaining as much water as possible before I leave this place.

It is only a few miles from where I intended to get water at the lake. I am curious to see how good of a source it would have been. When I get there it is what I expect. It is a lake that has a muddy shore. It has plenty of water that probably tastes like dirt. And it would require waiting out 20 or 30 ft for it to be deep and clear enough to collect. I am glad I went to the campground despite them being closed.

I have only about two more road miles before a long section of trail where I intend to camp. Judging from the satellite view I have a place in mind it’s about a mile and a half from the trailhead, but I have four miles of trail to pick from.

Just before I get to the trailhead, I woke by a house where the lady has just come out to get her mail. She asks if I need any water. I have only drank a half a liter but I will definitely accept any offer of water. So I drink the rest of the partially filled bottle and give it to her to refill. Now I just managed to help the net effect of one extra leader of water. I will feel my comfortable for tomorrow’s hike.

When I get into the trail section, I can hear the voices and hollers of kids only a few tents of a mile behind me. There is no sense in even looking for a campsite until I am certain that they are no longer anywhere around. There are several good ones that I could have picked but I keep going.

By the time I get to the spot that I had scouted on the satellite view, the kids voices are nowhere to be heard. Now to start looking for a spot. This area seems okay. It is not real flat and the vegetation is a bit thick so I keep moving on.

I get to a section of woods that I know is the last woods before I will be entering a large meadow. This would be an ideal spot to stop. On the right side or pine trees {space} why depart and without any undergrove but the ground is a little too sloped. On the other side there is level ground but there is a little more vegetation.

I dropped my pack at a place that looks decent and decide to go see the edge of the meadow to see if I can see anything further down the trail. That was a good move because right at the edge of the meadow is a bench overlooking to meadow. And there is an even better spot only 20 feet away from it. So I go back and grab my pack and move it to the new spot.

I set up the tent first and then get my cooking gear and go to the bench to start cooking. Tonight it will be my last dehydrated meal of chicken and dumplings. I have some Irish butter and partially that I can add to it to jazz it up. Other than the chicken being a little tough it was actually really good.

I look over the maps for tomorrow’s hiking section. My schedule says that I’m supposed to take an Uber into a town five miles away to get a free hotel. The town only has 6,000 people so I’m not sure they will have Uber service. It’s 25 mi to that spot on the highway which is close to the distance that I did today. If I reserve a room and there’s no Uber service it is going to be a very miserable 5-mile March into town. It will be an equally unpleasant March back out from town the following morning.

I should be passing a small town with a bar and grill for a late lunch tomorrow. If I get there in time and have enough daylight to potentially make the 5-mile road walk I will go ahead and book the room tomorrow. I will let the weather and my water tell me what to do tomorrow.

Emotion of the day, Disappointed

Seeing the Amish buggies was not a disappointment, that was a bonus. But the heat was certainly disappointing.

Comments on one of the views in the guidebook said That the view was the most impressive at least going eastward. Going Westward it was hardly even memorable. I can think of a half a dozen views already that were better than this one. Maybe that means the Western half of the trail is going to be really boring. That would be disappointing.

It was disappointing to see that the lake I planned to filter water from would have been a difficult place to get water from. It was doubly disappointing to walk a mile off trail and a mile back to go to a campground that was closed for the next 4 days. But at least I was able to get some water, even if it was iron tasting water.

The bar for lunch in the hotel at the end of the day would suggest that tomorrow would be anything but disappointing. So if tomorrow ends up being disappointing then I will be whatever emotion goes way beyond disappointment. Hopefully you’re not all the way to anger. It’s too hot to be angry.

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.

Today is all road walking except for 2 miles of trail in the middle of the road walk. I finished all the official Trail in town last night so today I leave from the other end of town. I will meet up with the green route about halfway to John Muir county Park.

I didn’t wake up till 6:00 a.m.. this is the latest I have slept in on the whole trip. Today is a perfect day to sleep in because I’m in no rush as my mileage isn’t very long. I think with my alterations to the green route it will be around 20 or 21 miles today depending on where I stop.

I went to the breakfast room at 6:30 and met someone from Galesburg Illinois. I have some good friends and Galesburg, so I asked them if they knew them. By some stroke of luck he did know them and we took a selfie and sent it to them via Facebook. I wish I was a fly on the wall when they read that message. I will have to harass them a bit later.

It was probably around 7:15 before I got out of the hotel and started hiking. The beginning of the route is a road that parallels the highway, so the scenery is not great and the traffic is medium. They can’t all be stunning.

After about 3 mi it turns onto some smaller roads. The route all morning bounces between really small roads and medium use roads for short distances. The last three or four miles into John Muir Park I am on the suggested route. I get there just before noon so I stop at the picnic area and have lunch. I also refill my water bottles but not completely as I only have about 9 or 10 miles left to go and I still have a nearly full Gatorade.

There is a woman there with two young children and the children ask if I’m hiking the Ice Age Trail. I was really impressed that they even knew that the trail was. They look to be about three and five. I told them I was and that made them happy.

This park is the boyhood home of John Muir. It is a large lake with a trail that goes all the way around it. There is one stream that is an outflow of the lake and one stream that is a spring-fed source for the lake. The childhood home is up towards the spring but it is not open to the public.

After another half a mile over some Meadows it’s back to road walking. This time I am going to veer pretty far off the suggested path. This suggested path goes North then East over North-South and East-West roads. The route I am taking goes diagonally straight into town but will have more traffic.

I have already walked this particular road for a mile or so and it was not too bad of a walk. There’s a car about every 60 seconds and there is not much of a shoulder but I can step off when I need to. The bad part is I am committed to the full 9 miles. If it doesn’t work out there’s no way I can turn around or cut off towards the suggested route.

It is also getting quite warm by now at least in the upper 80s. My umbrella helps but if there’s no breeze it is still hot. If there is a breeze then it is bearable. The next 3 days are supposed to be even hotter.

I take a break under some trees to rest and drink my coffee. After a 30-minute rest I have a lot more energy now. The combination of rest plus coffee is amazing. I have about six more miles into town.

The afternoon goes by uneventfully. As I approach town there seem to be more stores than the guidebook indicates. The guide book really undersells some of these towns.

This is the smallest turtle I’ve ever seen in my life. He made it across the road safely, too.

My first target is Rendezvous Paddle and Sports. It is a restaurant that also brews their own beer. I have one of their IPAs which is only the second beer of this trip. It was quite delicious and paired well with the hamburger and fries. The staff there recognized that I am an IAT hiker and wish me well.

My second target is a campground. There are two to choose from. The first one does not answer the phone, but the second one does. Winner. It is a mile and a half down the road. It takes me 30 minutes to get there.

They have two tent sites and I take the one that has a nice tree to pitch my tent under to keep the dew off of it overnight. They have a pretty well stocked camp store, so I buy things for breakfast. Next up is the showers.

Tomorrow is going to be all road walking so I will have to plan my water very carefully. Plain old woods are easier to hike in than roads.

Emotion of the day, Boredom

There wasn’t much excitement today. It started with road walking and ended with road walking. The park in the restaurant or the only highlights.

The park was a little bit of a let down. John Muir is a pretty famous guy. I’ve seen his Redwoods Park and I’ve seen his Trail in California. Those are Grand features. This park was just a trail around the lake. I guess I was hoping for more educational materials on his life and activities. Or at least to be able to see this childhood home.

The restaurant and beer were good though. And this campground is pretty nice. I sat in their air conditioning for an hour after my shower doing my blogs. But now as I sit in my tent it is warm and muggy.

Tomorrow is supposed to be hot but the day after even hotter. I think much worse days are about to come. So I guess a little boredom isn’t so bad after all. Stay tuned for misery.

I woke up early and got about 90% packed before before the breakfast opened at 6:30. I don’t have a super long day today so I don’t need to rush but I still have to get an Uber ride back to the trailhead. I don’t end up making it on to Trail until about 8:15. I wanted to use Lyft but they couldn’t find any drivers within 5 minutes so I switched to Uber and they had one 10 minutes away.

This trip is partially an experiment I’m conducting to compare Lyft and Uber. So far there are no surprises. Uber is more reliable and more expensive. Lyft is just fine, they just don’t have as many drivers.

The trail wanders through the campgrounds for at least a mile if not two. It takes me by the camp store so I stop in to buy a Coca-Cola for my afternoon caffeine. Hey, why not? After all, I’m carrying a Marie Callender’s microwave meal for lunch.

There is a little bit of elevation to the trail but it’s not steep. It feels like the PCT, but looks like the AT. The weather is still pretty cool so it is very pleasant hiking. This section of Trail is supposed to last about 8 miles.

I am delighted to find a wild hop vine growing right next to the trail. I pick one of the cones and it is almost mature. It has a fairly heavy amount of yellow lupulin within the petals. I tear one open and smell it and it has a wonderful aroma of a piney / citrusy hop like maybe a Cascade. I pick another one and put it in my camera bag so that I can smell it for the rest of the hike. Or at least until it stops smelling.

The trail ends at a parking area with about 20 cars in it. I did not see a single hiker leading down to the parking lot so there must be many trails leading away from here. I am done with trails for the day. I have 19 miles of road walking ahead of me.

The first half mile is flat, but the road turns up a steep slope for a solid 3 miles of climbing. It is still cool and there is a decent amount of shade on the road so it is not unpleasant hiking other than the huffing and puffing. I do need my umbrella for sections of Sunny road because it is warming up.

For the first 3 miles of the road walk I will be following the suggested route. But after that I will fear more Northeast where the suggested route keeps going north. My route is about 3 miles shorter but also has a least three miles on a busier highway. I am hoping it turns out to be in my favorite or at least an even trade.

Around 12:30, I pass a wooded area that doesn’t have any No Trespassing signs, and has a wonderful rock to sit on. This looks like a wonderful place to stop for lunch.

The chicken alfredo pasta survived the trip up the hill. It is still a little bit cool. I wonder if I should have actually microwaved it before I left. I might try that next time because I have a feeling I’m going to be doing this again. Even cold it tastes pretty good. But it is not evenly mixed in the container so I have to use my spoon to get a little bit of sauce and a little bit of noodles and a little bit of vegetables in each bite.

I also have a Milo’s lemonade that I sit on during lunch. The Rock in the shade and the almost real food makes a pleasant little 10 minute break.

This guy’s wins the mowing award of Columbia county, Wisconsin.

The roads on the route I have selected are very desolate. I am starting to figure out that if there is no paint on the asphalt then they’re probably is not much traffic. Every time I come to a road with painted lines the traffic increases. And as the shoulder width increases so does the traffic. I might be able to use this with satellite view to scout out roads in the future.

When my small roads end and the large road begins, I still have nine miles to my final destination. The large road is about what I expected. There is a car every 30 to 60 seconds sometimes more. But there is 3 ft of paved shoulder and about 6 to 8 ft of rock shoulder. So even though there is a lot of annoying and loud traffic, the walking is actually pretty good and pretty safe.

The only exception around Bridges when I have about 5 ft for me between the barrier and the white stripe. The bridges are short no more than 40 yards. But there are two interstate overpasses that are a good 200 yards and above a rush of traffic below. When you can see heavy traffic below and heavy traffic right next to you, it almost gives you a vertigo like feeling. It was really unnerving. But luckily lasted only one to two minutes each time.

There is a BP gas station at the first interstate over change, so I stop and get my obligatory ice cream. I should have gotten a Gatorade too, because my water is really hot. I have plenty, it’s just not pleasant to drink. It’s supposed to be 15° warmer over the next week so this might end up being a common theme. I wish I had not sent my oolong tea back home, because it makes drinking warm water quite pleasant. Hopefully this will be the end of the heat waves.

When I get to the bridge that crosses the Wisconsin River I am now on official trail again. It starts down a residential street a block away from the river. After a half a mile or so it goes behind the houses onto a trail along the canal. I followed the trail to the end of the canal then I can backtrack up to the street and start heading my direction northward towards the hotel.

I think I have about three or four miles to the hotel from here. I was originally planning on eating somewhere downtown before heading to the north side of town, but I’m just not that hungry so I keep walking. There are nice sidewalks the whole way so it’s easy walking even though there is a decent amount of traffic on the roads.

Less than a mile from the hotel I passed by a Jimmy John’s. A good deli sandwich would make an excellent dinner tonight. It would also make probably the cheapest dinner I’ve had on this trip so far.$11 later I have a sandwich and a bag of chips in my pack. I drank four or five cups of ice water in the time it took them to make my sandwich. Cold water is wonderful.

I keep hiking towards the hotel and see the Aldi grocery store that is across the street. This is where I was planning on buying my resupply. But I also noticed there’s a super Walmart on the left side which is the same side as the hotel. I think the Walmart will be easier to get to so this is where I will resupply.

After checking in and taking a shower I take some mental notes about the number of meals I will need for the next 4 days while taking into account the number of restaurants I will be able to stop and eat at along the way. I really don’t need that much food but I’m sure that once I get in the Walmart I will buy too much anyway.

I didn’t do too bad in the shopping department today. I did double up on sweet things – buying both snack cakes and cookies when I really only needed to buy one. I justified the double purchase saying to myself that the snack cakes were for dessert tonight and then I was only carrying the extras. Lying to yourself is so easy.

Emotion of the day, Comfort

While the day did drag on until 7:30, it was not a stressful day. Not even during the 5 mi of the busy highway. The first 8 Miles on the trail was very cool and relaxing. I could have hiked this in autopilot mode for weeks.

The first part of my road walk was on very desolate roads, and even gave me an opportunity to relax in the shade on the steps of a small Church. I don’t think I saw more than 25 cars that entire section.

And the wide shoulders on the busy highway didn’t add any stress to that section even though it was noisy and obnoxious. And I think I finally found my Wisconsin rednecks. Four or five cars honked at me as they drove by. I assume they were not pleased with me hiking along the road. But who knows. At least no one screamed out a window “get a job” or something like that.

And the only stress of shopping in a Walmart is making sure you don’t buy too much. I did also buy one more Mountain House dehydrated meal for this next section. I am really glad to know that Walmart carries them regularly.

Knowing that I would get a shower again tonight and be able to eat anything I wanted was very comforting.

Oh, I almost forgot the most important part of the day. My pack no longer stinks like stinky man-dog piss! That is immensely comforting. When the temperature gets into the mid-90s in a few days, that is going to be extremely important.

Chores, chores, chores. People think hiking is all fun and games. But there is a large amount of work that goes on in between hiking.

I went to the super Walmart next door after breakfast to get cleaning supplies and an extra t-shirt. I thought I had thrown away my camp towel at the last hotel, but after cleaning my pack I found it stashed away in a pocket where it shouldn’t have been. That’s one less thing to buy at Walmart.

Well in the camping section I discovered that Walmart sells dehydrated backpacking meals. This is a wonderful surprise. So I go ahead and buy one for the next week. I also pick up some food for lunch since there are not many restaurants near the hotel.

The first order of business is cleaning. I completely empty everything out of the pack and begin washing it in the sink with a combination of shampoo and body wash. After I rinse it gets another cleaning with just body wash. Then it gets another rinse and a thorough dousing with an odor block. Then it gets another rinse and another application of odor block. I leave it hanging upside down from the shower head in the shower to drip dry for an hour.

I then snag a towel from the gym and take my tent outside in the grass to clean it as well as I can. After that I clean the inside of the tent and get all the dead mosquitoes out of the roof with a washcloth. It gets a light dusting of the odor block and then hung up in the room to dry.

In the meantime I have two days of blogs to catch up on and post pictures of. I also eat the wonderful frozen items I bought from Walmart for lunch. A can of spaghetti for a buck – you can’t beat that. Roll back those food standards while you roll back the savings. I managed to get all the laundry done at the same time. Multitasking for the win.

The next order of business is the hardest of all. I haven’t really planned out the second half of the trip with regards to food resupply and especially camping for the next week. I managed to break down the longest food carries to 4 days by adding another town stop which will require an Uber ride. 4 days of food weighs far less than 6 days of food.

When it’s finally time for dinner I go ahead to the place next door called the Pizza Ranch. I didn’t realize it was basically a pizza buffet with a hot bar and salad bar. I should have gone before 4:00 because it would have only been $10 at that time. It was actually a lot better than I was expecting. Mid westerners have the deep dish crust down pat, but they still don’t understand the concept of thin crust. It’s supposed to be a crust not a cracker.

Back at the hotel, I’m still writing out plans until after 8:30. I have been doing chores non-stop from 6:30 to 8:30. That’s 14 hours of chores. That’s longer than a full day of hiking.

Emotion of the day, Happiness

It took multiple cleanings and rinsings but I think I have all of the dogs stink out of the pack. I could still get a faint smell from the phone sleeve so I gave that an extra dose of the odor block.

I have the next 5 days planned out in detail and the following week in a rough draft.

Walmart had everything I need plus the bonus dehydrated dinner. As far as objectives and completions, everything is checked off. That makes me very happy.

The campsite in the woods kept the tent nice and dry in the morning, but the bottom side is always moist and picks up a lot of dirt from these tent pads. I would much rather have the bottom dirty and the top dry. The dead things stuck to the tent still smell pretty bad though.

I am up and out by 6:15 and the trail quickly turns into meadow walking. The grass has been cut recently but the weeds from the side overlap the trail and get me pretty wet pretty quickly. The shoes are soaked within 15 minutes.

The sun is just starting to rise and making interesting patterns of sunlight filtering through the trees into the fog. When I first emerged from the campsite I could see that the town was under cast. Thick fog blanketed the town but just above that layer it was crystal clear.

I ate a small breakfast this morning because I am only 3 mi from the next town of Lodi. As I enter town there is a diner which I’m planning to stop at. I am there in less than an hour eating a breakfast skillet with hash browns and corned beef hash. I stopped by a gas station next to pick up some Gatorade and M&M’s for the road walk today.

The trail doesn’t take a crazy route through town this time, but it does do something unusual that caught me off guard. I thought I was on a trail that was taking us out of town, but it turns out it’s just an out and back trail to the high school. I was confused when the trail ended but then I remembered this was another skinny lollipop trail.

At least I didn’t have to force myself to hike it. The first half was a really nice hike through some woods not far from houses, and the second half was mostly a meadow walk to the high school.

After making it back to the park where the lollipop trail started, it is down to real road walking again. It starts out as houses, then moves to light industrial, then it is rural again. It is only a few miles to the first trail section.

On this Trail section I run into a volunteer who is weed whacking the trail. We stopped and talked for 5 or 10 minutes and then we both moved on. The trail dropped me out on to another road where I resume road walking.

As I wander down one country road, I can see a Ridgeline to my right with some rock outcroppings. If this was the Appalachian Trail, I would be certain that the trail would be heading in that direction. After a quick look at the map zoomed out a little bit I realized that is indeed where I am headed.

When I get to the trail section there was a parking lot with several cars in it. I could hear voices from The cliffs as I pass below it so I imagine I am going to pass all of these people coming down as I am going up.

The climb is very gentle and changes between woods and Meadows all the way to the top. There are four or five places where you can cut out from the trail to the rocks and look at the valley below. I take a small break to drink some water and have a snack. It is still pretty early in the day. It is not even noon yet.

I hit another parking lot on the other side. So it is back to road walking for me again. The next excitement is passing a section of road that is being resurfaced. As I walk along it, I can see that they have been working on it, but there is no one doing anything today.

By 1:00 I make it down to the Merrimac ferry. There are bathrooms with a water fountain and an ice cream shop on the south side of the ferry. I partake of all three facilities. Just as I am finishing my ice cream the very arrives in the begin loading cars. I hustle up and walk on to the ferry with about 10 other pedestrians and maybe 10 cars.

The ferry ride is 7 minutes long and very peaceful. With all the barricades and bridges for the walkways in the up position you can’t really see anything so it’s a little boring. But once on the other side there is the same bathroom water and ice cream stand. It is now after 1:00 so I eat my lunch and then buy some popcorn and more ice cream. I don’t begin resuming my road walk until 2:00 p.m.. It was a nice fun break.

The road walk this time is only a few miles and enters another trail section that is again a mix of woods and meadows. Except for the Rocky outcrops all of the trails today are exactly like this. I estimate that I should make it to the park headquarters by 7:00 p.m. based on my current rate and distance.

It is about 5:00 p.m. by the time I hit the parks South entrance. From here I begin climbing a mountain that I know is going to have another set of Rock outcroppings. I can see them off in the distance but I can’t see the ones that I will hike after this set. I know that through the park I will go up over a mountain down to the lake and then up over another mountain to the headquarters.

The climb up is not bad and I don’t really slow my Pace at all. As it gets near the top of the trail actually becomes paved asphalt as it nears the rock outcroppings. On this mountain there are about 20 places you can peek out and see the view below. And as I look at a few of them I can see there are some mortared rocks. This must be the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

Balanced Rock is the last landmark before going down to the lake. The trail is very Rocky now and hard to follow with twists and turns all over the place. There are signs pointing towards balanced Rock but they are hard to follow sometimes. Whenever I am unsure which direction to go next I just look for mortar around the rocks.

Once I get to balanced Rock it is a little bit of a letdown. I was expecting it to be much larger. It looks about 10 or 12 ft tall but balances on a base that is barely over a foot wide. More impressive than the rock is the rock work that is the trail. This is some of the steepest trail I have ever been on including the Appalachian Trail. Without all the rock work it would be nearly impossible for most people to scale up or down.

Once I make it down to the lake I had for the vending machine to grab a soda. Even though I have already had my caffeine and I would not normally drink caffeine this late I know I have one more big climb and will need the energy. The machine is out of every single item except for diet Pepsi, so a diet Pepsi is.

The climb on the other side of the lake isn’t nearly as steep as what I just came down. But it is still very slow going and I don’t reach the headquarters till after 7:30. I have already booked a room for two nights in a town only about four or five miles away but it is too far to walk before dark. My plan is to walk the exit road of the park to a business where I can catch an Uber as long as I have cell signal.

I have a very faint cell signal at the exit of the park but I am able to use the Uber app even though it is very very slow. I am able to get a car and he shows up in 10 minutes. It is well after 8:00 by the time I get to the hotel. I get quarters and soap for the laundry but for tonight it is nothing but shower and bed immediately. I don’t even bother to go out to eat. I just make some Ramen in the microwave and go to bed.

Emotion of the day, Surprise

Today was a day of surprises. The mix of road walking and trails all day was well balanced. I am used to the road walking being the dominant portion. So that was a nice surprise.

Having not one but three ridges to climb with rock outcroppings in good views was also a surprise. I expected at least one in the State Park but the first one was a bonus.

I was also surprised at how steep the trail down from the East ridge in the Park West. I was also surprised that the entire ridge was composed of pink quartzite. These rocks are pretty slippery, and if it was raining this would be downright treacherous. The texture of the rock is about like marble. But there is not a grainy structure like granite has to grip your shoes. Thank goodness it is sunny and dry today.