Category: Ice Age Trail

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.

Today is a busy day. I spent all of my time yesterday catching up on blogging and doing laundry but I still have one more day to post. I get the last day posted and then head down to breakfast at about 6:45. Too sad little biscuits some chocolate milk and a banana are on the menu for I grab another banana for the morning walk.

It takes a while to get everything packed and ready to go. I decide to use Uber today instead of Lyft to compare their prices. As expected Uber is about $5 more but the driver arrives pretty quickly.

By the time I get back to the grocery store and on the trail it is about 8:20 in the morning. It’s about the same schedule as earlier in the hike so it should be a casual day.

I have two targets for the day. The first Target is the headquarters of the Ice Age Trail in Cross Plains. The second target is the distributed campsite just a few miles outside of town.

I am also curious to see the distributed campsite that is in the Town of Verona only about a quarter of a mile from the grocery store.

I am hoping for mostly bike trails this morning but it turns out to be mostly Meadows. The Meadows have been mode recently so the grass isn’t really high but it is totally saturated with dew. My feet aren’t getting soaked but they’re definitely not dry.

When I get to the distributed campsite it’s a bit of a joke. It literally is just a little wider margin around the post where they’ve mowed the meadow back a few extra feet. If I had pitched my tent here my guy line would have been staked in the middle of the trail with the back of my tent all the way against the meadow. About four or five more feet of mowing would make the site usable for up to four tents. I am guessing this site rarely gets used.

There are small sections of bike trail in between the meadows. They are more like connector sections to the meadows. I take a quick break on a bench to eat my banana and drink some water.

After a few miles the meadow turns towards the Wisconsin Badgers golf course. It must follow the golf course for over 2 miles. I have a very slight headache so I stop by the clubhouse and grab a soda to see if I can knock it out with caffeine. Well, caffeine and sugar. I down the Pepsi within about 2 minutes.

For the next few hours I definitely had more energy. But the headache is still lingering in the background.

There are one and two mile road walking sections to link up different meadows and wooded areas. I find some apple trees along the way so I ate two or three apples while I walk.

I decided to stop for lunch at about 1:00 in a wooded section just as it emerges into a meadow. I take my shoes off and let my feet hang out in the sun to dry while my body stays in the shade. As I am eating the sun is creeping up my legs so it is my built-in timer to let me know when it is time to go.

It is 1:30 when I get up to leave for lunch. I have seven and a half miles to the headquarters and that should get me there at exactly 4:00 p.m. which is perfect because they stay open until 5:00.

The rest of the afternoon is uneventful. Instead of stopping to make hot coffee I just pour my coffee and sugar into the remainder of my water bottle at 2:30. I do this well still moving on a road walk. It goes by 198 acre farm that is for sale. Anyone interested? It has a really cool looking stone house.

Just about a half a mile before hitting the headquarters the trail crosses some train tracks. I can hear a train in the distance so I make haste to get to the tracks before it arrives. I want to make it across the tracks in case it is a long and slow train. It turns out it was one engine and only two cars so I hurried for nothing. But I got some good video footage.

They have routed the trail literally right up to the front door of the headquarters. There is no way you could miss it. I go inside and chat with a few of them for nearly an hour.

It is fun sharing my perspective with them and hearing their perspective and reasoning behind some of the road walking routes. One thing I had not considered is that they own property that just doesn’t have trails on it yet. So when I show them on the map one of the alternate courses I did instead of their suggested course, they point out the plot of land they own adjacent to their route. In a few years time their route will make far more sense once you see the trail section.

After bidding them farewell, I had to the other end of town to grab something quick to eat for dinner from the gas station. A prepackaged burger and chicken sandwich it will be. I also get a Starbucks doubleshot for tomorrow afternoon and an ice cream for the walk back to the trail. The ice cream is long gone by the time I make it back to headquarters.

The trail leaves the north edge of town by walking down some neighborhood roads. I checked the map to see how far before we turn off onto a trail and I am surprised to see the dot is right on the trail. I look up to my right and see a sign in between two houses leading me up the hill. Talk about perfect timing.

It’s a little bit of a climb up the hill but not too bad. It should be about a mile and a half further to the campsite area. I am taking my time because I have plenty of daylight left and I’m not exactly hungry after the ice cream.

When I get to the distributed camp area it is one of the fanciest I have seen yet. They have a designated tent pad and three other areas designated for cooking, disposing of dish water, and hanging bear bags. The tent pad is just gravel but at least it’s flat.

I set up the tent and then walk over to the food prep area to eat my sandwiches. The mosquitoes are not horrible but they’re bad enough that I basically just walk around in circles while eating. The sandwiches are still warm so they’re not too bad. I doubt I will get these again in the future though. One of the ladies at the headquarters had given me some cherries so they end up being dessert.

Emotion of the day, excitement

While leaving the hotel was not exciting the rest of the morning and afternoon was. I was eager to see the DCA near the grocery store. It turns out that one was a disappointment. By the way, DCA is distributed camping area.

Walking along the golf course was really fun. It seems like the course went on forever and would never end. It looks like a really fun course to play, but I haven’t played golf in close to 30 years.

Normally meadow walking is not my favorite thing to do, especially in the morning when everything is wet. But these Meadows were groomed well enough that it was really quite exciting. The flowers right now are just huge. And it was rolling hills all day. It wasn’t exactly a Julie Andrews moment but it was close enough.

And then getting to the headquarters and being able to chat with them for such a long time was exciting for me. They said they only get about 30 people a year to stop in and talk. I know more people through hike it than that but maybe more people hike after hours or on weekends when the office is not open.

I’m glad they were open and I’m glad that I stopped in. It will give me different perspectives on the rest of the trail.

I wanted to make sure I started my routine before 5:00 so I could get up and moving and leave the snowmobile path as early as possible after sunrise. I was camped near a bridge and I could hear two bicycles pass by, one of them even before 5:00. I wonder if either of them saw me.

Since I am camping in grass, the tent is soaking wet. I have everything backed in the pack before I get out of it so that only the pack has to sit in the wet grass while I roll up the tent. There is no point in trying to keep things clean or dry I just have to roll up the soggy mess and put it in its stuff sack. It has a waterproof sack so it won’t get the rest of the things in the pack wet.

The ankle is stiff this morning and it takes at least 10 minutes for it to warm up. It helps to start out slow and just let the pace naturally improve. There is a tender spot on one of my toes that I will have to keep an eye on but it is not causing me any issues while hiking.

I was a little further from the road walk then I thought last night. I am 2 miles away from where the trail is closed and I have to take a detour of two miles around about one and a half miles of trail. The trail is closed because of an unsafe tunnel.

Comments in the guide suggest that the reroute is pleasant. And when I get to it I find that the comments are true. You can see several large farms and the rolling hillside of this area. The road turns four or five times and every time it does the scenery completely changes.

One of the last farms that I walk next to has a vast collection of older implements for their tractors. They have two of the oldest combines I have ever seen. You can tell that this thing was probably tricky to operate in its days there are little wheels and knobs to adjust nearly every aspect of its operation. Modern ones are far more automated.

The detour route finally makes its way back to the rail trail. But after only a mile or two it is time for road walking. They have us detour about 2 mi on a road to reach a section of about 6 mi of dedicated trail. Then it looks like about a mile of road walking to get back to the same rail trail I am on now. These 9 miles of Trail look like they replace four or five rail trail miles and bypass an entire town. I hope these 9 miles of trailer worth it.

One benefit to this longer section of Trail is that it passes by a county park with a hand pump and electric outlets. I am in need of water and can always charge my devices. I spend about 30 minutes there letting my battery charger do its thing. It is a pretty nice park.

There is still a little bit of road walking left to get to the trail section and it goes by quickly. When I get to the trail section it starts as a grassy hike through a meadow. It is late enough in the day that the grass is not really getting my feet wet. But The Meadows are all starting to look alike now.

I can tell from the map that there is going to be some elevation changes here. It looks like we will be hiking up and over eskers again. It also looks like it is hardwood forest so I am expecting mosquitoes.

The mosquitoes do come but so do the apple trees. I managed to find a really good size apple that has no worms in it and it is one of the sweeter ones that I have found on this trip. There are so many different kinds of berries on the trees around here but I have no idea what any of them are.

To my surprise, more of the trail is in Meadows than hardwoods as I was expecting around the hills. The elevation is not as steep as the map suggested either. It ends up being a really nice 6 Mile section of trails. I can see why the long detour to get here now. And I also end up seeing about a dozen day hikers on this Sunday morning.

By the time I make it back to the rail trail, it is 2:00. There is a bench at the intersection and I pause to think about making coffee but it is a little too early. I will just hike on to the next bench and make it at 2:30 or 3:00.

The problem with this plan is that no more benches appear on the entire length of this rail trail. There have been more benches on this trail than any trail I have ever seen but not on this particular rail trail. It is after 3:30 before I find the bench at the road intersection and can make my coffee. It is at least three miles of road walking to get to the trails leading into town and I need to make sure I have enough energy.

After my 30 minute coffee break, I am off. The road has no shoulder and has several hills but has very little traffic so it is not that big of a deal. But the last mile is on a very high speed road with a ton of traffic. I am basically walking in the ditch for the entire mile.

The trail section finally comes and it is more meadow walking. The weeds in this meadow are gigantic. They’re over 6 ft tall. I should have known because the name of the park is Moraine Meadow.

I am hot and worn out and decide to try and get a room as close to Verona as possible. All of the rooms in this town have been booked up for weeks but there are adjacent towns that have had vacancies. I end up getting a Fairfield Inn about 14 miles from where I will end up. I will have to Uber to the hotel.

As the trail approaches town, it goes through neighborhoods, transitions to bike paths, and sometimes sidewalks. It seems to change every quarter mile or so. And through these changes I miss one of my turns. I stay on the sidewalk where the trail turned off onto a wooded trail. Instead of backtracking I just bushwack across the field to catch the trail.

There is also a section of closed trail that I will have to detour around. The detour is blazed with yellow markers, but there is no alternate track in the app. This is a several year detour so it would be nice if they could put the detour as an alternate in the app. If I get lost on The detour it will be serious cross-country travel through swampy areas to get back to where I need to be.

I managed to not get lost on the detour but it was a bit longer than the regular trail. I can see the grocery store that is my ending point but the trail goes way past it and then snakes back. I stick to the official Trail so that I can make it easier to resume tomorrow morning.

Once I hit the grocery store I make a mental list of things I will need for the next 4 days. It is very dangerous to go grocery shopping while hungry. I managed to keep things under control and under purchase what I will need. I will take inventory tonight and then come back in the morning if I need to buy more. But what I discover in my research is that the very next town has another grocery store, so I probably didn’t need to buy anything at all. I have not been very successful in buying groceries on this trip.

I hail a Lyft ride, and the trip will only cost $16 and a driver accepts my request in under a minute. This is at least a good sign. I change into a clean shirt and wash up just a little bit so that I don’t smell horrendous in the driver’s car. I barely get everything packed up again before the driver shows up.

At the hotel it’s the normal things. Shower, get coins for laundry, go find food. On the way into the hotel I saw that there was a Five Guys on the next block, so I head there. As I am sitting eating the free peanuts while waiting for my burger, I noticed there is a Dickey’s Barbecue right across the street. I wish I had seen that earlier. I just cannot win at the food game.

Emotion of the Day, Anticipation

Today was a long string of unknowns. Would my secret camping spot be discovered? Would the tunnel detour be pleasant or a pain? Would the road walks be pleasant or dangerous? Would the mosquitoes eat me alive? Would the sun come out and bake me? Would trying to get an Uber to a town 15 minutes away be a disaster?

It turns out that only two roads were too dangerous to walk on in my opinion. The mosquitoes were not as bad as other similar sections of trail. And the sun stayed hidden by clouds for much of the day.

The most unpleasant part of the day was trying to find a bench to make coffee on. That section of rail trail had thick vegetation on each side and not an inviting place to just park on the ground. It also had a ton of bicycles.

Everything worked out in the end as it always does.

There was a fair amount of rain last night but after closing the flaps I kept nice and dry inside the tent. I was able to wake up around 5:00 and get all my packing done and out of the park by about 6:15.

The first order of business was to run to the other side of the park and throw away my garbage and to use their vault toilet before proceeding on my road walk.

It was a good morning. It was was very peaceful and I didn’t even see a car for at least an hour. With the early start I should be able to get to Evansville before 10:00 a.m. without any trouble.

The suggested route goes north and makes some back and forth bends. But to the south, if I am willing to walk on the busy road for about a mile, I could probably save 2 miles of walking. After doing one mile on the busy road instead of taking the small back roads I decide to stay on the busy road because it is more direct and the traffic is not bothering me at all.

It was a good choice because it comes to a gas station with a McDonald’s in it, and I could use a biscuit this morning. So I stopped for a quick break and charge up my electronics while I’m sitting there, which is a bonus.

I’m trying to remember the last time I’ve been to a McDonald’s and the only time I can remember for sure is in 2016 on the Pacific Crest Trail. I really do think it’s been 8 years since I’ve been to a McDonald’s.

About a half a mile up the road, I meet with the suggested connecting route coming in from the north. The connecting route has us coming in from the east almost to the center of town. The connecting route turns north and then becomes the official trail in a park with a lake. The whole point of this exercise going to the north end of town is just to hike through this park.

The trail then turns south back towards the center of town. Within a half a mile I can actually see the point where they turned us north just a few blocks ahead. I have walked over a mile and a half and effectively gone three blocks. That’s how this trail goes. No matter where you’re coming from or going to they are going to take you to every little park in memorial in the city.

The trail exits town to the south and ends up following a road that goes to their main high school complex. It then turns to a trail in between the high school and some houses and then exits on a road. It feels really weird walking right through the middle of a high school complex like this. I get the creepy “what do sex offenders do?” thought again. I stop at the baseball field before leaving to sit on their benches and eat a snack.

Now begins more road walking. Probably about 10 miles worth. The suggested route goes south then west then south again but doubles back on itself for about a mile. It looks to me like it would be shorter and easier just to keep going south then go due west. So that’s the route I choose.

And as I’m walking my own route, I am happy with my decision. The route I chose is more direct and has far less traffic on the official route. I have a feeling I’m going to be having to use creativity on a lot of these connecting routes for the rest of the trip.

I am able to find shade trees along the route to take a few 10 minute breaks. I take the chance to nibble on snacks and drink water during my breaks. It’s amazing how just 10 or 15 minutes of resting in the shade will rejuvenate you with energy.

The next town I will come to is Albany. I should get there shortly after 3:00 but with my breaks it’s more like 3:20 or 3:30.

The one thing I really need to do in town is refill my water bottles, as I have less than a half a liter left and we’ll need water for tonight and tomorrow morning. As luck would have it, the bathroom area in the middle of town on the bike trail has flush toilets and an ice cold water fountain. My bottles are now full.

Exiting town there is a Mobile gas station, so I stop and get a pint of ice cream and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. It’s right at 3:30 now, so this is a good time to have my caffeine. I wanted to make coffee about a mile and a half before town, but I’m glad I waited, because here I have a picnic table and the opportunity to dry out my tent in the sun.

My break here is about 45 minutes, but then I am off again. I got here far earlier than I thought, so the place I am planning on camping I will reach in just over an hour and it is way too early to stop. It is especially way too early to try and stealth camp.

The trail leaving town goes by a river and this was one of the suggested water sources. But the river is pretty cloudy and really hard to get to, so I’m glad I did not even attempt to do this. This is also becoming a recurring theme. Most of the rivers they mark as water sources are nearly impossible to get to and probably not the greatest water. Water fountains have been my primary water source.

As I am passing by all these river crossings another detail makes me glad that I am going through this area early and will not try to camp here tonight. All morning out in the fields with a strong breeze there have been almost no mosquitoes. But here near the river, they are so thick I can see them flying through the air ahead of me. Even with the head net they are really annoying. There is also a strong breeze so these suckers are determined.

All the mosquitoes just make me hike faster. Coffee plus mosquitoes equals a record place. I have a feeling I will be doing this entire 10 mi section to the next town tonight just to avoid the mosquitoes.

After the next town of Monticello, the trail goes through fields, so the mosquitoes should be not nearly as bad. The only downside is here along the river it’s public state hunting grounds. A place that seems more legal to stealth camp.

But past Monticello, it’s private property on both sides. So I will have to be very creative and where I find to pitch my tent. Plus, I can’t go too far or the trail turns into another road walk again.

I begin looking for snowmobile trails that cross the path that I can pitch my tent on. I only have about 30 minutes of daylight left and I’m not having any luck. I see a field of the left that looks promising and walk out towards it. But the grass is so thick that I am positive that I will lose my tent stakes in it. I have to keep moving.

A little past 7:30 I finally see what I’m looking for. There is a snowmobile path crossing both sides. To my right side, a road is very close so this is not ideal. But to the left is a soybean field with a treeline not too far away, and I can’t see any houses in any direction. This will be my camping spot for tonight. And just in time because I am about 1 mile from where the trail turns into a road walk.

I have been fighting mosquitoes for the last 3 hours and there are plenty here where I pitch my tent. I set the tent up quickly, then throw my ground pad in the tent, then throw the entire backpack in and jump inside. I normally place things one by one in the tent before I get in. But I need to get out of these mosquitoes very quickly.

About a dozen mosquitoes make it in the tent with me. I quickly kill about half of them and the rest of them are all buzzing around the top of the tent trying to get out. Suffer, you little bastards.

I have been wanting to try to make mashed potatoes in the bag that the potatoes come in. But I have been afraid that the plastic is the type that shrinks when it gets hot. I decide that tonight is the night I will try this experiment. To my delight it works quite well but it is hard to stir the potatoes at the very bottom. I can probably also not heat the water so hot next time.

It is dark by the time I eat, so I end up unrolling the mattress and sleeping bag in the dark. I’ve done it enough times by now that I don’t need any kind of light to do it with.

Emotion of the day, Pride

I got up and moving pretty early this morning. Both of my alternate connector routes saved me two or three miles in total and were less busy roads as well

I was able to avoid the temptation of eating in restaurants other than McDonald’s in the morning. But I justified that by being able to charge my devices for 30 minutes. I also had to use their Wi-Fi because for some odd reason the entire town of Evansville has zero Verizon signal.

I was able to take enough breaks on the road walk and in town that I never felt exhausted or sleepy. I was getting tired the last mile or two trying to look for a place to camp, but that is normal when hiking so late. I also think I’m at least 8 Miles further than I intended to stop tonight.

Right now I’m proud of these small accomplishments. I just hope the extra 8 Miles doesn’t cause problems for the rest of the schedule, because I still have a lot of road walking ahead of me.

My feet have been rejuvenated with my day off doing chores. Usually my left heel is sore in the morning and takes about 10 minutes to warm up. But today it’s not stiff at all is ready to go as soon as my feet at the floor.

And the feet hit the floor early today because I want to try and get as early as start as I possibly can. Breakfast starts at 6:30 so I’m awake and showering by 6:00. I managed to get the pack completely packed before 6:30 so as soon as I’m done with breakfast I am ready to go. And it was the same sad breakfast as yesterday.

The weather is cloudy and I was expecting it to be cool. But it is anything but cool. It is actually quite warm and muggy. In less than 5 minutes I am already saturated with sweat.

I have about 1 mile to rejoin the trail from where I left it to get to the hotel. For about the next 8 miles to town I will be following a bike trail.

As the trail winds through town, I come across a sign that tells me how far it is to each terminus. I have come 324 MI and have 776 left to go. I am also at the most southern point in Wisconsin that I will ever be on this trail. From this point on I will be heading north while still drifting Westward.

The downtown area is nice to walk in. The trail is along the Rock River and there are little shops and plazas everywhere. It seems like most of the shops are on the other side of the river.

Something just dawned on me this morning. I think so far the trail has routed me at right adjacent to about six or seven elementary schools, middle schools, or high schools. Isn’t there some laws for registered sex offenders that they can’t be within a certain distance of a school? If that is true then how would a registered sex offender be able to hike one of these trails without going off route? And what would happen if they accidentally got too close and someone found out? Creepy, I know, but I don’t ever think I’ve seen this many schools on a hike before.

Just before leaving town there is a restaurant just a few blocks off the trail. It is only 10:30 in the morning but they opened at 10:00. I sit there for about 5 minutes contemplating should I or should I not. I have plenty of food with me in fact probably too much. But it’s hard to resist a fresh sandwich. So I decided to go ahead and track up the hill and check out the restaurant which is actually a bar. I wanted an Italian beef but they are out of roast beef so a Ruben it is.

By the time I get back on the trail the clouds have cleared up. So it is not only muggy, now it is also hot and muggy. I am also feeling a little overfull, so I think my choice to eat lunch so early was a mistake.

The last section before leaving town is a park with a boat launch and lots of recreation areas. The trail leaves a park up a steep staircase to take you to a stream that is stacked with many tiers of boulders that they call the devil’s staircase.

I wasn’t in the mood for this climb because I am full and all of the rocks are wet. Most of the rocks are dolomite and they are very slippery when they are wet. Even the dirt has mold growing on it and you slip all over the place.

The trail exits that area and skirts around the edge of a golf course to go into another park area. This park has an 1840s pioneer cabin and there is also a building that has a fountain running continuously for drinking. I think I drink water there for about two solid minutes. And it is good and cold.

When I exit this park, it will be road walking all the way to the last park where I will be camping tonight. It’s probably 10 miles or so of road and that would put me at the park somewhere around 5:30 which is a good time to stop.

Most of the roads are very lightly traveled but they have pretty poor shoulders on them. I take a break when I find some shade at about 2:30 and make my coffee. But this time I just make it cold and don’t bother to heat it up. I am feeling pretty tired but within 15 minutes I have enough energy to keep trucking.

When I get to the next intersection and look at the map I see that it looks like there is a road that angles a little bit and could shave a half a mile off the route. This is one of the green sections so it is a connector and you’re able to make your own route if you want to.

I decided to go ahead and stick with the official route instead and soon regret it. One of the roads they have us on for a little over a mile has a tremendous amount of traffic and absolutely no shoulder. It is about 30 minutes of the most miserable road walking yet on this hike. It’s county road H if anyone cares.

The rest of the road walk go smoothly, but the last mile it begins to rain lightly. The good part is at least it is now much cooler and much breezier so my sweat begins to evaporate finally. I make it to the park just before 5:30 and head towards the hiker section that has a hand pump. Comments in the guidebook say that the hand pump is missing a handle, and indeed it is. It is about a quarter mile over to the equestrian side which has its own water pump, so I head that direction.

The equestrian side is much nicer. They have a covered pavilion with four picnic tables and their pump is electric. You just put your bag under the spout and turn the timer and it shoots out water at tremendous speed. The only bad part is that shoots out rusty water. Even after filtering it doesn’t taste very good. I arrived with about a half a liter, which is enough to cook with, but I will have to be drinking this water tomorrow during my hike.

Shortly after I arrive at the shelter it starts to rain, which I was expecting. The last forecast I was able to get said it would rain on and off till about 8:00 p.m. so I will basically do everything short of set up the tent under the pavilion and then set up my tent at the last minute. Luckily it is breezy so there are no mosquitoes even though there were some along the lake getting here.

A group of four girls arrive with horses as the rain intensifies. They are troopers. They keep gearing up and head out into the rain. If you love riding horses then I guess you love riding horses. Just like if you like hiking you like hiking whether it’s raining or not.

The cell service here is almost non-existent, so to wait out the several hours before dark I will have to entertain myself the old fashioned way – with a stick and a hoop. Not really. I have only listened to music one time on this trip. And for some reason I just don’t feel like listening to music now.

Emotion of the day, Regret

It’s amazing how the effects of one bad decision can last with you for so long. I do regret stopping to eat lunch so early. I missed out on the opportunity to lighten my pack and I made myself over full and uncomfortable for several hours of hiking. At least it’s a lowercase regret and not an upper case regret. The sandwich was still very good.

The bad news for tomorrow is I will pass by places both at lunch time and dinner time so I will have this dilemma two times tomorrow. Stay tuned to see if I I’m able to learn from my mistakes or not.

Today is a day of rest. A few days ago the forecast said that today would be solid rain all day long. I made the decision to push here into 3 days instead of four. It was definitely at the limit of what I could do this early in the hike given the spacing of campsites and road walks. But I made it, here I am, let’s rest up.

As forecasting often goes, as the week went on the forecast got less and less dire. It is still supposed to rain on and off all day today but light amounts not heavier amounts as earlier predicted. That’s fine, I still have a lot of chores to catch up on from the last 3 days. My feet are also pretty tired. But luckily no blisters yet.

The area I am in is a bit spread out, but has everything that I need within 1 mile. The most important is the Hy-Vee grocery store next door. Next door being a half a mile away. This grocery store is so big they’ve built a drive through bank looking facility just for picking up online ordered groceries. Inside they have the largest selection of about everything I have ever seen in a grocery store in my life. My first priority is to not buy too much. The second priority is to buy things that look interesting.

Laundry is also a big part of the day. I’m going to also try and clean my pack a little bit as it is accumulated some mud and dirt. It also smells pretty bad.

Blogging is another chore to catch up on. Since I have been hiking untill almost dark every day, I haven’t had much time to write each day’s entry. For the last 3 days I have only written notes of the day and not the entire blog. Today I will have to catch up on the last 3 days, plus today. I schedule each post to go out many days after I write them so that I can catch up when I don’t have good cell signal or the time to write them live. This is one of those situations.

The breakfast at the hotel was interesting. They have the usual eggs cooked in a giant bag with bacon sliced so thin you can see through it. The usual toast and bagels and muffins are there as well as oatmeal. But the bowls for the oatmeal are gigantic. An entire ladle full of oatmeal only covers about a quarter inch of the bottom of the bowl. I like oatmeal, but not that much. They also have the standard juice dispenser machine, but this one also has grapefruit juice. The problem is the grapefruit juice tastes like pure sugar, so I’ll pass on that one.

Zero days are sometimes really fun in a town like Damascus, Virginia where there are a million activities to do. But camped out in a strip mall that could be in any metropolitan area in the country, it doesn’t have the same charm.

Since I expected today to be rainy and didn’t really want to go out side too much, I bought a prepared lunch from the grocery to eat today. It turns out it’s raining so little that that was not really a need. Oh well, one less chore to do today.

Catching up on all the blogs takes until about 2:00 in the afternoon. Now I turn my attention on the next few days of the hike. The next town up the road is Verona, which is a suburb of Madison, where the University of Wisconsin is. I find a series of campsites that can get me there in 3 days. When I check hotel availability everything is booked up solid for the day before during and after I expect to get there. There is definitely some big event going on in that town during the same period. There is a distributed campsite in that town so that will be my target.

One of the campsites along the way is a county park that asks that you request permission beforehand. I make a call to the number listed and they get back with me within a few minutes letting me know it is okay after taking my personal information. I can probably expect to visit from the local sheriff that night.

I also plan out the next few days after that. I will end up at another state park at a point where the trail splits either west or east. This is the bifurcation point and you get to choose which direction you go. They both have a lot of road walking in them and not a lot of camping options. They are within about one mile in length from each other so that is not a factor.

The Western route looks like it will require too many heroic 35 mile day walks. I was originally planning the Eastern route and the camping options look easier that way. But the Western route does have hotels within walking distance. It also happens to be within Uber distance of the Eastern route. That day of arriving at the bifurcation and choosing where I’m going to stay, I am going to leave as a day-of decision.

When dinner time comes, it is not raining but looks very ominous outside. I decided I am just going to eat in the food court of the Hy-Vee since I have to go there anyway. I bring my umbrella with me just in case.

Inside the grocery store, there is a Wahlburger. I have never had one so let’s try it. It was nothing to write home about. Yes, I understand the irony in that statement, and the fact that I am writing about it.

One of the planning chores that I did this afternoon, was figure out where I could stop along the way for lunches or dinners. There will actually be for lunches and dinners I will be able to catch along the way instead of carrying. So I have factored that into my shopping list.

I find everything I need but it takes a full hour because the store is so huge and I am not familiar with the layout. In the end, I end up visiting every single aisle. I can tell already that I have bought too much again.

It is raining slightly by the time I exit the grocery store so I am glad I brought the umbrella. When I get back and repackage everything for the food bag it is probably more than I need considering the number of meals I will buy along the way. I think I overestimated the amount of cheese I need for this section but I want to supplement breakfasts with more fat. I will be eating a lot of cheese over the next few days.

Emotion of the day, Relief

Planning a zero day ahead of time can end up backfiring on you. Are all my chores done so early that I feel guilty or are bored for the rest of the day. I was relieved to find out that I was actively doing chores until 8:00 p.m.

And even though it didn’t rain as hard as the earlier forecast had suggested, it was still raining hard enough during periods that it would make hiking unpleasant. So I was relieved to be spending productive time indoors today.

And even though it took far longer than I expected, I now have the next 7 or 8 Days planned out. With so many long road walks it can be complicated to plan out where to stop. I am relieved to have the next week taken care of in that regard.

I am also relieved to find out that my feet feel better today than they did yesterday. There is always amount of hiker hobble that starts up in the morning and takes a while to work out. By the time lunch rolled around, it seems like I wasn’t having to warm up the feet so much.

So it’s comforting to know that today was a day well spent not hiking. It is a relief to know that today was not wasted, despite not hiking any miles.

Today is the same kind of morning as yesterday. Get up early, eat breakfast, and don’t lollygag. Breakfast one is granola. It was a local brand I had never heard of and is really good. I just eat it dry without any kind of milk.

In fact, I have thrown out all my milk powder. I have carried it over 1400 miles without eating any of it so why have I carried it so far? I did actually try some with my granola about a week ago and it only made it messier and added a bit of time to clean up my cold soak jar.

I carry an empty peanut butter jar to cold soaked foods I don’t want to cook but it can be a hassle because it’s difficult to clean. And if you don’t clean it regularly, it can get quite disgusting. That may be something that I ditch at some point, too. But I do really like eating cold Ramen out of it.

I was out of the campsite at 6:02, which is my earliest start yet. The campers next to me never made a peep all morning. They are still asleep.

This campground has many loops, and the Ice Age Trail is supposed to intersect it in two different spots. But I don’t want to risk having to double back if I don’t find the right trail that exits, so I decide to just backtrack where I entered the campground. It’s only an extra hundred yards.

The trail within the park is a little longer than I expected for the morning. It was closer to two miles when I was expecting only one. It doesn’t matter very much as I know once I hit the road I have less than a mile to the artesian spring. This is my primary target for the morning.

In the guidebook they say that locals the lineup to fill their water tanks. And that is an accurate statement as it is not even 7:00 a.m. and there is already a truck filling a tank in a trailer that they are pulling behind them. They leave just as I arrive and see the spring for the first time.

It’s an amazing sight. It’s a small mortared section of stones with a pipe coming out of the side of it. The pipe is open at the end but has two other pipes welded into it. One of the pipes is facing downward as a spout would be to fill containers with. The area of the ground is covered with metal grates because the amount of water that flows out of this thing is immense.

There is an entire little Park here with a picnic bench and a garbage can. There is a sign that says a man dug this well by hand in 1855. When he reached 55 ft the water started flowing and has not stopped ever since. The water tasted good but was not the most amazing water that I have ever tasted from a spring. But it was 12,000 times better than the water from the campground. So I dumped out both bottles, rinsed them well, and filled them both to the lid. I also cameled up by drinking as much as I could tolerate before refilling the bottle again. I should not have to refill for the rest of the day as it is only about 18 miles to the first town of Milton and the trail is a mix of road and paths.

I have about five or six miles of road walking before I hit the first section of trail. It is about 9:00 a.m. when I hit that section and I am sleepy again like I want to take a nap. I think I need to start introducing fat into my breakfast as granola is just two carb rich.

The other negative is that this trail section is grassy meadow and I am about to get my feet soaked because it is still too early in the day to have burned off the morning dew. After that, more road walking.

The roads before the trail were typical corn and soybean fields. The roads after the trail are a little more rural residential but there are still some Fields here and there. The shoulder is narrow but the traffic is light so it’s not too bad of a road walk. But most of the road is an exposed Sun so I am already lathered up and using the umbrella by 9:00 a.m. and end up using it most of the day.

At noon I am hungry, but I am still too hours away from the first town of Milton. There is a giant tree providing shade in the middle of the road so I just stopped there and eat my lunch.

I bought a French baguette that is not fully cooked that you are intended to take home and finish cooking to crisp up. This turns out to have been my favorite meal of the trip so far. I was originally going to make little sandwiches with summer sausage and cheese. But I am also carrying butter and olive oil so I’m using that on the bread and love it. More of this, please.

The road did end up having more shade later on, but it was still hot so I was still using the umbrella most of the time. I was expecting to enter the town of Milton on rail trails, but it was really just a sidewalks intermingled with some jogging paths. There was a Bonnie nursery as I entered town. They had many huge greenhouses which all seem to be full of dead plants. Most of them were 90% empty anyway.

My target was the Piggly Wiggly which was two blocks off the trail. And my mind for the last 2 hours has been set on ice cream because of the heat. So I bought a pint of vanilla ice cream and a Green Goddess juice. I went ahead and bought a small Powerade so I didn’t have to bother with getting any more water. The ice cream was quite refreshing. This is probably going to become a habit.

This town was larger than I expected, and took about 2 mi before the houses started to disappear. But the road walking transitioned into a dedicated trail but didn’t look like a rail trail. Two down, but six more to get to Janesville.

After about a half a mile and crossing another road it did become a rail trail with huge trees on both sides. It was a Forrest Gump moment but more importantly it provided shade for the afternoon. The shade only lasted about 2 miles as the rail trail gave way to road walking again. After another mile or so it was back to dedicated bike paths. This would be my last 3 miles to the interstate where the hotel was.

The bike paths went behind many people’s houses. At one house there were two ladies who called out to me “are you hiking the trail?” I spent about 5 minutes talking with them. They both enjoyed hiking the various sections nearby, mainly The Kettle Moraine I just finished. Neither of them could imagine spending 2 months hiking the entire thing. That is a common thing when you talk with locals who are even know what the Ice Age Trail is.

At last, I finally made it to the interstate at about 5:30. This is where I exit the trail and walk along the sidewalks under the interstate. There are many crosswalks and a lot of traffic so it takes a while to go the one mile to the hotel. It is a brand new Townplace suites. And it is in a major shopping district, so all the services I need should be nearby.

Near the hotel on the sidewalk along the interstate, I come across a hawk who has just caught a rabbit. He tries to fly away with the rabbit but can only make it about 10 or 15 yards before he has to land again. It is too heavy for him to fly any distance with, and he is not about to give it up to me. We spend a few minutes dancing around each other until I can get by him without forcing him to leave his dinner.

Shower is the first order of business, as usual, and dinner is the second. I have several choices but I decide on Mexican again. But this time I will just get a simple burrito so that I’m not too stuffed. I am not disappointed as the burrito is quite delicious. But unfortunately I am stuffed again. Third world problems.

The Hy-Vee grocery store is on the way back to the hotel so I decide to stop in and check their selection. And if it is raining tomorrow, I will not want to walk out into the rain just to get lunch so I will buy some kind of prepared lunch that here that I can warm up in the hotel room.

This Hy-Vee is a very impressive grocery store. It is huge and has an incredible selection. I choose an Asian meat skewer on lo mein for lunch tomorrow. They also have soft baguettes so I go ahead and buy one since I know this will be a staple of mine from now on.

Outside the grocery store is also impressive. Instead of typical curbside delivery they have a whole sequence of lanes that look like a bank drive-thru teller complex. You just pull into an empty lane and they cart out your groceries and load them into your car for you.

It begins to rain gently as I approach the hotel. I was carrying my umbrella with me the entire time just in case. Because before I left the hotel the weather app showed a gigantic front headed directly my way within the hour. I couldn’t have time today’s events anymore perfectly.

Emotion of the day, Elation

Other than being hot and tired, today was a perfect day. I woke up and got out on time this morning. I didn’t have to scrape too many slugs off the tent while packing. And the artesian well was better than I expected. Eating a pint of ice cream on a park bench was also a pleasure.

Lunch was delicious. Dinner was delicious. And I got to actually speak to humans today. Knowing that rain is coming and that I got everything done before it started also made me happy. The forecast now doesn’t show as much rain as they were predicting earlier in the week, but rain is rain and I will be indoors for most of it.

Good food, a hot shower, and missing rain are just one notch above good. One notch above good is elation.

Today is the moment of truth. It’s barely two weeks into the journey so a 35 mile day today is a little bit of a risk. If I ramp up mileage too quickly then I run the risk of injury. Having the option of stopping after 28 miles takes the risk away.

I wake up at 5:00 and start my morning activities on time, but I’m moving a little slow this morning and don’t get out till about 6:15. This is still an acceptable time to leave, so no harm.

The morning walking is mostly through meadows. Meadows mean grass. And grass in the morning means dew. And 4 hours worth of dew means soaking wet feet. In fact my feet were soaking wet within the first 5 minutes. This is part of hiking in the east.

What I didn’t factor in to the equation is the terrain of the hiking today. Everything has been roads or paths or meadows with a few little hills thrown in here and there. But today is downright hilly. The hardwood vegetation with rocks and roots on the trail and the grade of it make me feel like I am hiking in Virginia on the Appalachian Trail. The climbs are not as high but it is definitely not level travel for quite a bit of it. This is going to impact my schedule for today. I am shooting for the distributed camp area which is the last place to camp before the road walk into Janesville.

My first target for the day is a visitor center which I should reach before lunch time. They are reported to have bathrooms water and if there is staff there is probably food or drink you can buy. That ends up being the case and I buy a small Gatorade because the day is getting quite hot. The grass is mostly dry now so I decide to switch into dry socks while I am there with a bench to sit on. It’s not quite time for lunch yet but I grab a small snack, too.

I reached the horse camp right around noon which was my original day to camping spot. But with my accelerated schedule it’s now a lunch spot. There are two other hikers there just leaving as I arrive. They are the first overnight hikers I have seen on this trip so far. One of them is a girl about to graduate from the University of Wisconsin who plans to start the Appalachian Trail from Trail Days in Damascus next year. She is out for a week this year as practice. Good for her.

I eat my lunch and refill my water bottles from their water spigot. They have running water here but only pit toilets. There is supposed to be a shower here but I don’t readily see it and it’s kind of an on time to take a shower anyway. So after my lunch is done I move on. And just as I am leaving another overnight hiker shows up to stop for his lunch. This is the most hikers I have seen in one day.

The terrain is becoming a factor in my schedule. It’s amazing how much the section feels like Virginia. Instead of doing 3 miles an hour I’m doing closer to two and a half. That may not sound like a big difference but after 12 hours it’s a huge difference. It means I won’t be able to do 35 today but 28 is definitely probable.

I go ahead and book two nights at the hotel in Janesville, and a campsite in the state park where I will end up tonight after 28 miles. I selected the campsite that is adjacent to the trail to minimize the amount of extra walking. The schedule is set it is etched in stone. Now I can hike the rest of the afternoon knowing exactly what my targets are.

I would see a fourth hiker pass me while I was eating my afternoon snack. For overnight hikers in one day and it’s not even the weekend, well not seeing any other overnight hikers the entire trip. What an odd day.

I arrive at the campground at about 7:00 p.m. which is essentially right on time. I will have an hour and a half to set up camp clean up a little bit collect water and cook my dinner.

The campsite is huge compared to my small tent. It is a sight that could fit a 40 ft trailer but I’m only taking up three feet of it. I am also in a small grassy patch behind a tree so it looks like my campsite is empty other than the few items I leave on the picnic table to dry out or at least air out overnight.

Water in this campground is from spigots one at each end of the loop. The water must come out at 120 PSI cuz it’s nearly impossible to hold a water bottle under the flow. There are only pit toilets and no showers. The lake is too far away so I will just use my handkerchief to clean myself tonight.

While the water is plentiful, it is disgusting. It tastes and smells like diesel fuel. There is an artesian well 2 mi into the hike in the morning so I will only collect enough to cook my dinner tonight and have a small bit for the two mile hike in the morning. This water is far worse than the iron tasting water from the hand pumps a few days ago. If the lake weren’t so far I probably would have just filtered water from the lake instead.

The campground is mostly empty. The only other campers that are even within eyesight are in the spot right next to me. I bet they think it is weird that I’m in a big campsite with just a small tent. Whereas they have a pop-up trailer and three vehicles. I only have two vehicles – my left vehicle and my right vehicle, both size 12, made by Saloman.

Emotion of the day, Calm

Today would determine when I would reach Janesville. Would it be 3:00 in the afternoon,or 6:00 in the evening? Either way I’m still reaching Janesville tomorrow. What time really doesn’t matter after all since I’m taking the day after that off so I don’t have to do any chores tomorrow night.

While I would have liked to have done 35 today, the terrain just wouldn’t allow it. Doing a 35-mile day on the Appalachian Trail would have to be exceedingly flat terrain. There are a few places where you can do it but Virginia-like terrain is not one of those places.

Even though I didn’t make the final call till after lunch, I still didn’t feel pressured. I actually felt sleepy about 9:00 in the morning and thought about taking a nap on the side of the trail. I must not feel too much pressure if I am deciding if I should take a nap in the morning.

Being able to make the hotel reservations for both nights without any issues was a relief. The Holiday Inn Express in the last town was plan B because plan A had filled up at some point during the day. I prioritize Marriott over IHG over choice purely based on the number of points I have with each group.

Making a reservation at the State Park campground also gave a huge amount of calm. Trying to find a campsite in some random forest that you’re not familiar with is always hit and miss. Much of this area is private land where you can’t camp. And much of the public land is so heavily vegetated you couldn’t possibly squeeze a tent in anywhere. Having a reserved campsite means all of that stress completely evaporates.

Even though I was pushing from the beginning of the day, I never felt pressured. And as the day progressed I felt calmer and calmer. Even if I had showed up at the campsite an hour after dark, there would still have been very little pressure. The campsite was there. The campsite was mine. No worries.

Breakfast is always the first order of the day. I am in no rush today but hey… priorities. Holiday inn Express used to push their cinnamon rolls as the gimmick to hook you in. But the sad truth is that they’re a bit dry and not really that good at all.

Laundry is the next chore as most of my clothes are pretty nasty. In between running to the guest laundry room I’m repackaging and packing my food. I can’t pack the pack yet because clothes go at the bottom.

I also have another exciting chore today. 2 miles into the hike I will walk right past a post office. There are several things in my pack that I just haven’t used on this trip and don’t plan to use for the rest of it.

One interesting choice of things to send back as my 360° camera. It takes awesome videos and being waterproof I can do things with it that I can’t do with my other cameras. But I’ve only used it twice on this trip and after losing my tent pole when I took my umbrella out I keep my tent pole in a different location now. It’s in a location where I can’t reach while I’m hiking so I haven’t used that camera except for the first few days. It weighs about 5 oz and that’s enough of a factor for me to decide to send it home. I also send home a mini tripod for the camera that I always hold in my hand.

Among the things that I decide not to send back is my little dog water bowl that I use as a washing machine. I never used it on the Florida Trail and I haven’t used it yet on this trip but I am expecting the second half to be far more remote and having to hand wash laundry a significant portion of the time. We shall see if that was a good decision or not.

I am able to get all my chores done and packed up and leave the hotel by 10:00 a.m. which is a pretty early start considering all the chores I still had to do this morning. The walk through town is nice. I passed several cafes that are serving breakfast/brunch and I’m tempted to stop but there’s no reason to.

When I mail my things back at the post office I asked them what the weight of the box is and it ends up being 14 and a half ounces. That’s nearly a pound I don’t have to carry anymore and my pack actually feels lighter. You really can feel 1 lb. Every time I pull my water bottle out to drink I can tell it’s not on my back anymore. And that is 2 lb full.

After the post office, the trail changes to bike pads. It is just a scenic as entering town. This would be a pretty cool place to live but I’m not sure I could handle the winters. The trails also intersect with cross country ski trails. This town was definitely geared towards people who love the outdoors.

For my lunch break, I am targeting what they call an indoor shelter. And when I get there I find out what they mean. It is like a visitor center but there’s no one there. Half of the building is just an open space with tables and chairs and a wood burning stove. The other half are flush bathrooms. Oh, the luxury of indoor plumbing.

The trail through this section of the park is mostly through meadows and up and over eskers and kames. A kame is just a singular mound of a hill, whereas the esker is like a ridgeline. They are both just piles of rubble left over from the melting glaciers.

They route us to one particular game that has a tower built on top of it. It’s not quite as tall as a fire tower but pretty close. The viewer top is far above the trees so you literally can see probably 50 miles in each direction. In fact I think I can see the skyline of Milwaukee. Either that or Madison. I’m not sure which direction Madison would be from here.

One of the areas I will reach today is called the Niagara escarpment. All of the glacial features so far have been related to rocks and sand deposited by the melting glaciers. But as the glaciers advance they push all this rock and soil off of the harder bedrock below. This area exposes the dolomite that the glaciers could not push away and this is the same bedrock that goes all the way to Niagara. It is also why there is a peninsula between Green Bay and Lake Michigan. There is an interesting artificial wall made of some of the flat stones that are exposed in this region. The dolomite is easy to spot because it has solution holes made into it where The Rock has unevenly dissolved over time. It’s similar to the formations in the Everglades on the Florida Trail that made man-eating holes you could accidentally step into.

There is not that much road walking in this section but there is some. The cool part about this road walking is they actually have cut a trail in people’s front yards about 20 yards from the road. That is good on this section because there are no shoulders on the roads and many blind hills to make road walking unideal.

I end up reaching the distributed camp area by about 5:00 p.m. This was my original stopping point for the evening. But the weather forecast shows very heavy all day rains on Thursday. This would be the day that I am hiking into the next town from the last distributed camp area on a 21 Mile road walk.

There are still three hours of daylight left. There is also another area where I can camp about 8 Miles away. After looking at the maps I figure a schedule where I can actually take a day out of this section and take a zero day in Janesville while it is raining.

If I can shave a full day out of this section, a zero day would not impact my schedule at all. It means doing 28 miles today even after starting late at 10:00 a.m., then doing either 28 miles each for the next 2 days, or doing a 35 and then a 21 for the next 2 days. The first scenario is definitely doable. The decision is made let’s go to the next camp area tonight and push hard for the next 2 days. I will try and get up and start hiking before 6:00 a.m. tomorrow to make the 35-mile day a possibility.

The best time for me to hike are those early morning hours from about 30 minutes before sunrise to 2 hours after sunrise. The second best time is just the opposite. The last two or three hours before sunset. Hiking in cooler temperatures without the sun beating down on you is always more pleasant.

About 1 mi from the place I was planning on camping I find a nice wide open space where I can pitch my tent far from the trail. This is probably a better location than where I was intending anyway. Let’s go ahead and camp here. There is some breeze so the mosquitoes are not bad at all.

Emotion of the day, Robotic

Robotic isn’t really the right term it’s more like overly analytical. The morning was getting all the chores done so quickly that a drill instructor would be impressed.

Looking at the weather, looking at the maps, figuring out where to camp, figuring out what the schedule would look like. These are all the logistical things that go on during a through hike that people who don’t through hike don’t really get to see. It’s not just a walk in the woods with a bag full of goodies.

There is a lot of planning involved, both before and during a hike. A schedule is just a schedule. The terrain the weather unforeseen circumstances all make the schedule just a suggestion. It is boots on the ground that make it happen.

Walking through the city, walking on bike paths, walking on path to people’s front yards instead of on roads for the most part, all this takes away decision making. The miles passed by quickly.

So today it was all about logistics, and feeling a bit like a robot. If I could figure out how to walk while sleeping I probably could have slept half the day while hiking today. But then I would have missed half the scenery.

I slept well last night and woke up about the time I wanted to, but I didn’t get out until 6:30 a.m. when I was shooting for 6:00. It wasn’t warm last night but it wasn’t cool. It was one of those odd in between temperatures. But I guess it was cool enough to keep the mosquitoes away.

As I was packing up to leave I could hear church bells ringing not too far away. Apparently they were from the Catholic church at Holy Hill. I wasn’t able to see it until I was nearly an hour away and it was too small to take decent pictures of.

The trail this morning was a constant mix of meadows, woods, creeks, and hills. It seemed like it would change at least every half mile. There were a few short road walks mixed in to get from segment to the segment.

It is Sunday morning so the trails are filled with day hikers. I probably saw 50 hikers this morning. It was sunny but cool and breezy so it would be a perfect day for just about any sport.

There are several places to stop and get water today. But as long as it remains cool I think I have everything to need until my first stop at the convenience store which I should hit around 1:00 p.m.

The trail follows a river for several miles that has so many letters I can’t spell it. It begins with O and ends with OC, and includes many M’s and W’s. We crossed it a few times on various bridges. I even heard some kayakers at one point but the vegetation was too thick for me to actually see them. [Edit. Oconomowoc River]

The last four or five miles to the convenience store is mostly road walking. There is one small trail section a little over a mile that detours away from the road and then back later on. I could probably have shaved a mile if I had skipped the trail section and just stayed on the road. But the trail sections have been nice so I went ahead and stuck to the trail. I’m not sure this one was actually worth it but at least I’m keeping it as pure as I can.

The last mile and a half of the road walk was a little unnerving. It had just enough traffic to keep you from being able to walk on the road. And the shoulders were either steep or filled with thick vegetation and there were a few blind hills. But once past the convenience store, all that would change.

The convenience store was just a Mobile gas station. But they had a small deli inside so I was able to get a fresh ish sandwich and some pasta salad. I grabbed one Gatorade to keep me hydrated through the rest of the walk into town which is about 7 miles. I also drank a Dunkin donuts coffee as my afternoon caffeine. There were two picnic tables in the breeze where I could eat my lunch. It was one of the best gas station lunches I’d ever had and the bathrooms were immaculate. No, seriously, this gas stations bathrooms were immaculate.

Just a few tenths of a mile from a Mobile station, the trail turned onto pathways through town. This one started as just a walkway about 5 ft wide but it was paved. It weaved in and out of parks and around streams behind people’s houses. At least five of the next seven miles would be exactly like this or dedicated trails through woods. The remaining two miles were through neighborhoods with no traffic.

It really was a pleasant hike through the small town of Heartland. I could live here. Except not in the neighborhood by the golf course that they sent us through. The house is there were just gigantic.

The last half mile was along a golf course. And then the trail spit me out at a Walgreens just a few blocks from the hotel where I was headed. Where I’m staying is only two blocks off the trail which is convenient.

Two blocks in either direction are all the stores I need tonight. First up is a Sierra store. I have never been there but it looks like they have some form of sporting goods. It is organized really oddly and I think that there is nothing I need here until I walk by the cash registers and find stove fuel and dehydrated dinners. I don’t need stove fuel yet but it’s good to know that this chain sells it. But I am in need of three dinners so I might as well buy three of the brand of dehydrate dinners that I like which is Peak Refuel.

Chore number two is to get change and soap for doing laundry but I won’t actually do it until morning time. I will plan a late departure again because I only need to do about 15 miles tomorrow.

Chore number three is to get dinner. I have my choice of Five Guys, Applebee’s, or a local brewery. Went in a new town always pick local. I ordered just a chicken sandwich with a side salad and the sandwich was enormous. They actually stacked two chicken breasts on top of each other. The sandwich but must have been 8 in tall when they brought it to me. I just pulled one of the breasts off to eat the sandwich with one and then just ate the chicken piece later by itself.

Chore number four was getting groceries. The first rule of buying groceries is always do it on a full stomach to prevent your stomach from buying too much. Even though my stomach is full of chicken I think I still bought too much cuz it feels too heavy for 3 days worth of food. Not to mention I already have the dinners in the room. Things could get ugly tomorrow.

Emotion of the day, Relaxed – Again

The only hurried part of the day should have been waking up and packing up and getting going. But apparently I was relaxed then because I took an extra 30 minutes to get going.

But I never felt hurried during the morning or the afternoon. I was expecting to get to the hotel by 4:00 which is perfect timing for doing chores.

I took more breaks during the morning. After 9:00 a.m. I was just feeling a little lazy. I had eaten enough for breakfast it was granola and a Danish. But carb meals don’t keep you going the way fat meals do. So I was snacking most of the morning.

Getting a good lunch at the Mobil station gave me energy for the afternoon. I don’t think I took any breaks all afternoon but I easily could have. I just didn’t feel the need to. It was just a nice surprise to be walking on trails 7 miles to the town instead of on sidewalks or shoulders the whole time.

it was just a relaxing, sunny day. The kind of day perfect for taking a hike or just about any other outdoor activity.