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.