Category: Ice Age Trail

Waking up at 6 am is fine as long as you get to sleep at a decent time. Ten for me, so 8 hours is a win in my book.

I go to the lobby to see what they have for breakfast items. I am delighted to see two kinds of burritos. Not breakfast burritos, but real burritos. Beef and bean with green chilies. A hot red one, too. They are as delicious as a burrito from a microwave can be.

I am in no rush today, as I want to be sure that I don’t try to go too far today. I need to be serious about pacing myself for the first week. 16 is my target. There are two campgrounds at that distance that I can choose from.

Today’s weather is nice. It is not cool and it is not hot. It is mostly overcast and it will stay this way all day. I was expecting hot, but I will consider overcast a win.

The trail snakes around an industrial area on a gravel path for about a mile. Then it turns into full on rail trail. This will be the treadway for the entire day.

The trail crosses many roads, but none of them are busy with traffic. The scenery changes from forest to corn fields to meadow to riverside all day.

The bugs are not bad in most sections, but a few areas are thick with mosquitoes and deer flys. I decide it’s time to try Mr Dragonfly. I have a rubber dragonfly that I can screw on the top of my tent pole sticking up out of my pack.

After an hour, I declare him ineffective, but I like his company so I will keep him for now. The bugnet is on my head for about 20 percent of the day.

I pass thru a small town with no services at about noon. I want to cook soon, but I only have enough water left for cooking and not for drinking. There is a park by a dam in about 2 miles which I should be able to hit by 1. I will cook lunch there.

As luck would have it, there are apple trees along the side of the trail here. They are small and not yet fully ripe, but they will quench my thirst. I eat five of them and I am no longer thirsty or hungry. Perfect timing.

Various flowers line the trail. This patch had two completely different flowers that were identical colors. I took pictures of about a dozen flowers, but I will spare you the drudgery of having to see them all.

The park at the dam was nice. The water was not so nice. It tasted like mud. I had clean water to cook with and drank about a liter of pond water flavored with a nuun electrolyte tablet. Lime mud tastes OK.

It was just a few more miles to the campground, but the camp store was disappointing. They had ice cream and literally nothing else. No water, no soda, no snacks. Ice cream sandwich it is. I was hoping for a Gatorade.

The campground was a good call. I was tired when I arrived, but revived quickly. If I had stopped for a break and not checked in, I would have been tempted to keep going another hour or two. It is only 4 pm and plenty of daylight left.

I look to see what is 16 miles ahead for tomorrow and it turns out to be the center of a town with a haunted hotel. If the Delta trips can book a room for tomorrow, then I am there. I check out the Delta website and they can book it for $108 with a $100 coupon and now I have a room with a shower for tomorrow night exactly 16 miles from here. I don’t have to worry about pushing too far tomorrow. And the hotel is cheaper than this campsite, which also has a shower.

Emotion of the day, Excitement

It is exciting to have the first full day today. The rail trail is nice. The scenery is nice. The fact that I have a rock solid plan to not start out too fast is icing on the cake. The overcast skies were nice, too.

I have well over a thousand miles left to hike, but it is exciting to be back on trail again. Only 22.8 complete, but that is still exciting to me. It’s a brand new experience on each different trail.

I was only able to get three hours of sleep last night. It took me an hour to fall asleep last and my body just can’t sleep past 7 A.M.

I didn’t really eat properly yesterday and it was such a long day that I was pretty hungry this morning, so I ate a large breakfast. I have many chores to do this morning and I need to get an early start.

The first chore is getting the package that I mailed to myself. The package is not at the front desk, but after a few questions here and there, the clerk and I figure out that it might still be in the mailbox out by the road. When we checked the mailbox, it is indeed sitting there waiting for me. So the first problem is resolved.

The next order of business is getting fuel for my stove. There is a sporting goods store two blocks away, so I decide to try there first. As a luck would have it they do have the fuel and they also have dehydrated dinners. So I pick up a lasagna and a pair of sunglasses since I forgot to bring mine. Chore two and three resolved.

Next up is to see about shoes. One pair of shoes is not going to last for the entire trail. There is a shoe store nearby that carries a brand that I’ve been wanting to try, and it’s only two blocks in the other direction. So I go there next.

They measure my feet, which I know will have them trying to put me into shoes that are too small. That is exactly the case, and they finally give in and try the sizes I was asking for. They fit much better, so I buy a pair and they will ship them to me later up the trail. Chore four is resolved.

Chore five is to find lunch and with a barbecue restaurant across the street from the hotel, this one is easy to solve. Chore five complete.

The only chore left for the day is to catch my shuttle which has been arranged for 4:30, but it is only one o’clock. So the next chore is to try and sleep for an hour or two. That chore fails, but at least I got some time to rest. I’m packed and ready to go buy four o’clock. So I run to the Starbucks across the street to grab a quick cup of coffee.

The shuttle arrives right on time, and it’s a quick one-hour drive to the trailhead. We talk about camping and hiking for the next hour and it goes by very quickly. Before I know it, I am on the Eastern terminus waving goodbye to the shuttle driver.

For such a horrible travel day yesterday, the first day of the actual trip has gone far better than anticipated. Other than not getting a nap, all of the other chores were far easier than I thought. I didn’t have to go three and a half miles to Cabela’s for stove fuel and everything I needed was within two blocks. I picked the perfect hotel site to stay at.

The Eastern terminus is quite nice. There is a very large parking area with one picnic bench and the obligatory terminus monument. Off into the distance you can see lake Michigan and a huge meadow far below the bluff where the terminus is located. I take a few pictures and then head off into the woods. My trip has officially begun At 5:45.

The first three miles are through the Potawatomi State Park. It is heavily forested and offers views of the lake for most of its length. I guess technically this is Green Bay and not lake Michigan.

There is just enough undulation to the trail to slow you down a little bit. If the entire trail were like this it would be absolutely perfect. I am not looking forward to so many bike trails and road walks that are totally flat. When it’s easy, you tend to go too fast and push too hard. I need to fight that urge for at least the first week so that my body can acclimate slowly without abusing it.

The next three miles are road walking through the town of Sturgeon Bay. The sun is setting, so it is a beautiful hike through the city next to many restaurants and little stores. My destination is a Quality Inn on the other side of town. I badly need to catch up on sleep, as I’ve had a low-grade headache all day from my body being so out of whack from the travel day.

This is Wooly in downtown Sturgeon Bay.

There is a very large Kwik Stop next to the hotel so that is where I will get dinner. A pizza wrap and a chicken sandwich with chocolate milk is the perfect dinner for tonight. Now to see if I can get some sleep. Real sleep.

Emotion of the day, Elation

Today couldn’t have been any better. I completed all of my chores within a quarter mile of the hotel. The shuttle went perfectly, and I am actually starting this trip earlier than I expected.

The trail, Including the road walks, is actually really nice. And I’ve not had to combat mosquitoes or horse flies yet, so I am elated to have a far better than expected first day. I know the misery is coming at some point, but for today everything is perfect.

I love travel and I love planes. But plane travel in the afternoons in the summer in the south is like playing Russian roulette.

The plan was a 50 minute flight from Gainesville to Atlanta, then a 2 hour flight to Green Bay after a 1 hour layover. Leave at 8 pm, arrive at 11:30 pm. That’s not what unfolded.

The Gainesville ground crew was great. They knew a storm was rolling in, so they had the arrival emptied and turned over in ten minutes. Our flight left 5 minutes early. Atlanta was clear, so they let us take off. A great start.

Nearing Atlanta is where things turned sour. A huge thunderhead was over the airport and we had to do circles to wait for the storm to clear. You could see dozens of other planes in the air doing the same thing .

After an hour of circles, we were running low on fuel, so we were diverted to Augusta to land and refuel. We sat on the tarmac in Augusta for an hour to wait out the storm. The fuel truck was right out my window so I could see the fuel gauge. We took on 859 gallons of fuel. There went any profit on the flight.

My connecting flight was also delayed two hours, so I should still be able to make my connection. But Delta kept trying to put me on a flight the following morning. I kept having to reject their recommendations to keep the original flight. Once we took off from Augusta, I could only pray we make it in time and Delta did not keep trying to rebook me.

Forty minutes later we were on the ground in Atlanta and the weather was great. And I had 25 minutes until my connection was due to depart. I knew I needed to go to the F concourse, but which one did I arrive on?

The answer was C. That is in the middle of the airport and F is at the far end with international flights. If I can catch the train, I can make it. It is about 12:30 at this point and the trains are not going to F concourse. I will have to walk. Quickly.

Walking at a 4 mph pace and using all the moving walkways helped. The F concourse is an eternity away. I make it about one minute before the door closes. I am the last one to board the plane. The plane is pretty full, but I can tell that the empty seats are others who did not make the connection.

After all the delays, the flight arrives in Green Bay three hours late at 2:30 in the morning. Now to get to the hotel. Uber, Lyft, or taxi. Any guesses?

I try to book an Uber as soon as the plane lands. Uber wants $65 for a 2.9 mile fare. No. Let’s try Lyft. They want $12. Bingo. By the time I get to the loading area, not a single taxi is around. It takes ten minutes to get a driver and the rate has gone up to $21. I’ll still take it.

The 11 minute eta takes 20 minutes. Then another couple tries to snag my ride. Do they not know how Lyft works? Five minutes later I am at the hotel. It is 3 am but my body thinks it is 4 am. I normally wake up at 5 am, so my body is wrecked.

Now to see how long it takes me to fall asleep.

Emotion of the day, Exhaustion

After an 8 mile walk in the morning, packing up everything, and dinner with Karen, I already had a full day. By the time the plane was in the air, I would normally be going to bed.

Now add 8 hours of travel, and I am exhausted. It’s one of those feelings of being so tired that you can’t sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, too.

I happen to have some free time away from work, so it’s time to sneak in a quick hike. And if you only have two months beginning in August, then Wisconsin is not a bad deal.

Fires are raging in the west, so they are out. Oppressive heat is still blanketing the south, so that is out. The east coast is at peak humidity, so that is out. The only thing left in the 1000 mile range is the Ice Age Trail. Sounds perfect.

The Ice Age Trail is one of the 11 national scenic trails, too, which is a plus. I have only spent a small amount of time in Wisconsin, so this sounds perfect.

The only thing not perfect is the schedule leading up to the hike. I have been in an 8 week cohort learning to teach Data Science and Machine learning that ends with an AWS specialty certification in Machine Learning.

These certification exams are not trivial. They take 3 hours and get very specific. But I also have another three AWS certifications expiring in October and another Microsoft one expiring in September.

So between last Wednesday and Monday, I passed one AWS specialty certification, one AWS professional certification, and another Microsoft one. My brain hurts, I need some trail time.

The trail itself is about 1150 miles long from Sturgeon Bay on the east, to St Croix Falls on the west near Minneapolis. About 500 of those miles are road walks, so I am expecting it to feel like the Florida trail in that regard. It is not mountainous and has plenty of water features, so it is like the FT in that regard, too.

I am not going to be changing any of my gear from the last Florida hike except for fewer warm clothes. So this should be an easy preparation and transition to this new trail. Bugs and thunderstorms will play a prevalent part of the experience. Fun, fun.

I have been walking 8 miles nearly every day for the last month and running some, so I am hoping that will be enough conditioning as long as I start out slowly.

Emotion of the day

Anticipation, definitely that. It has been a while since a longish hike and it seems like I have just been tied to a computer for the last year and a half. I definitely can’t wait to stretch my legs and beat up my feet again. I have been wanting to really get to know Wisconsin better as well. I am anticipating that this hike will be a lot of new experiences for me.