The caffeine headache monster has returned. I had to get up at 4:00 a.m. and take two aspirin because I can feel one coming on. The bed at the bed and breakfast is extremely comfortable so I’d love to sleep in until noon, but I do have a decent amount of hiking planned for the day.

Breakfast is at 8:00, so I wander upstairs a little before 7:00 to see about some coffee. She has a brand new cappuccino machine which she is still figuring out how to use but it made a decent cup of cappuccino.

Breakfast was a fruit cup followed by a poppy seed muffin as an then the main course was eggs Benedict with rosemary roasted potatoes. And it was outstanding. She asked if I wanted yogurt too and I’m glad I said no because with the amount of food I am just the perfect amount of stuffed.

Nearly everything was packed ahead of time, so I’m able to get on the road at 8:15. I still have to take two miles on the ATV road to get back to the connecting route. It looks like the connecting route just follows featherstone road along the other side of the highway from the ATV road.

It is clear skies this morning, so the ATV road is a little sunny and I’m already starting to sweat. So I decide to go ahead and take the official road instead of just staying on the ATV road. And I am thrilled to find out that it is not actually on the road but it’s a trail between Featherstone road and the highway. So it is still noisy but it is very shady and very cool and the footing is good.

And speaking of footing, I have my new shoes on. These are Topos which is a brand I have never tried before. They have a wide toe box similar to Altras, but they have a stack of 5mm which means my heel is 5 mm above my toe. I normally can’t wear zero stack height shoes because it puts extra strain on my Achilles tendons which appropriately enough are my Achilles heel.

I am still carrying my old shoes with me just in case these shoes don’t work out for my feet. I only have 110 mi to go but it would be disastrous if for some reason these used cause blisters or irritate my foot or tendons or something like that.

The weight of your pack is proportional to the sum of your fears. So I just added the weight of a pair of shoes to my fear list. I will carry them for two days and then ditch them after that. There is no rain in the forecast for the next 4 days so there’s no point in trying to keep them as water shoes either.

The trail gets a little tricky as it changes from ATV to special cut trail to dirt road. It switches to the other side of the road about a mile and a half down. Then it works from the ATV road to a snowmobile road. This looks like a rail trail just for hikers snowmobiles and bikers.

On the map it looks like a perfect rail trail and it looks like it goes on forever. All I care about is there is not too much grass and there is shade over most of it keeping me nice and cool. There obviously aren’t any snowmobiles on the trail right now, and there aren’t even any bikes.

This is such a remote part of Wisconsin that I really don’t think I’ll see anyone on the 15 to 20 miles I’m going to be on it. But I do get one surprise visitor – a porcupine. He is ambling across the path just 30 yards in front of me and he looks like a drunken raccoon with a hangover. He just waddles across the trail into the woods probably not even knowing that I’m around.

But as I approached the next town, I do get some bicyclist visitors. Two of them stopped while I am at a bench eating a snack. They are locals here and one used to be a school teacher that taught the children of the person who donated this particular plot of land to the state to make this park. It is fun chatting with people who know the true history of the location you are at.

Later on as the trail switches to an ATV road I come across two section hikers. They told me there is another through hiker up at the next town which I am eager to meet. But I’m more eager to actually get to the town because I’m getting hungry. I won’t get there until 2:30 so that will have to be lunch and coffee break.

The trail moves off the ATV trail which was very sandy and rocky and difficult to walk on. It is now on a dead-end road leading into town. Not a single car passes all the way to town.

But when I get to town it’s a little bit of a let down. I forgot that it’s Sunday, and all four restaurants in town are closed. But the grocery is open so I make a bee line straight to their door.

Grocery stores are actually good places to find lunch because you will spend far less money and get exactly what you want. As long as you don’t want anything cooked.

Today’s lunch is a can of spaghetti, a banana, and a pint of vanilla ice cream. There is Starbucks frappuccino for coffee and a Dole lemonade for the trail. I am really digging this Dole lemonade. When it is ice cold it is really refreshing. When it is luke warm it is just sour and sweet.

Today I am finally seeing some red colors on the ground and in the trees to some degree. There is still plenty of yellow but I have yet to spot any orange.

I now have to road walk out of this town for three or four miles to a Boy Scout camp. I obviously can’t camp in the boy scout camp, but I have 9 or 10 miles further that I intend to go today. I have been stopping and talking to so many people that I’m actually behind schedule. And when I get to the lake of the Boy Scout camp, I get behind even further, because the other thru hiker is sitting there with her dog.

Her name is Beads and she is from Washington. She has hiked about a half a dozen trails already including the triple crown, which is the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail. We talk for about 30 minutes and now I’m even further behind. I doubt I will be able to make my intended target but I need to make it as far as I can before it gets too dark.

The trail outside of the Boy Scout camp is another heavily logged section. It is actually difficult to find the trail and I can tell that volunteers have been here recently to install new posts with blazes on them. There are huge piles of cut logs everywhere ready to be hauled out. There are also other clear-cut areas which are already springing up in Aspen groves.

At around 7:00 p.m., more mature hardwood forest shows up, which gives me relief. There’s no way to camp in Aspen but a good chance to camp in hardwoods. I keep hiking till about 7:30 when I find a decent spot about 30 yards off the trail. This will be home for tonight. I am 3 miles short of my target distance, which means I still need to do 30 mile days for the next two days to make the town of Luck.

There is some road walking but not a lot so there is a possibility that I may get to that town a day late or may not be able to stay in that town and have to just do my laundry and move on through. There is the possibility that I may not finish Wednesday night.

Emotion of the day, New Shoes and Clean Laundry

I’m not sure exactly what the single word would be for my emotion today so the description above explains what is driving my emotion today.

I have a brand new pair of shoes, which do very well on road gravel and grass. I have clean laundry which is quickly getting soiled because it is already very hot by 9:00 a.m. and I am sweating like a pig all day. But at least I do not have two dozen gnats flying around my head.

I left town with a really good breakfast in my belly. I got a really good impromptu lunch at the grocery store. And I have leftover chicken tenders for dinner tonight.

Happy is not an accurate word for my emotion today. It’s probably closer to rejuvenated.