Category: Ice Age Trail

It was nice sleeping at the Iola winter sports club shelter last night.  Staying at a shelter means no putting up a tent, and more importantly, not having to find time to dry it out the next day.  On the trail, Brianna falls asleep about an hour before me.  I looked out the open side of the shelter at Mars dipping across the black horizon for a while, my legs spasming after the long road miles.  A critter was scratching the wall next to Brianna’s head, eventually making it onto the roof of the shelter, but she did not stir.  I could also hear several hornets nests in the rafters, but they did not bother us.

Debbie, our local trail coordinator for this segment, picked us up at 0700 as planned.  She greeted us with a smile and a bag of fresh grapes.  It’s clear to me now after these brief encounters with Debbie that she has a busy mind and is a hub of whose who in the local IAT community.  In the short period since dropping us off, she had reached out to several people who might assist us later.  Thank you for everything, Debbie!  You are a rockstar.

Our hiking day began where it had ended, the Rosholt Dollar General.  I’m not a fan of dollar stores and their ability to shut down local businesses when they come into town, but they seem to be everywhere on the trail we need them to be.  We shop locally whenever possible.

Today was a much better day than yesterday!  There was more road walking, of course, but we had a breezy overcast kind of a day.  New Hope & Iola Ski Hill segments were pristine.  Fresh wood shavings lay about the trails, evidence of recent trail work to clean up after the storms.  These central trails have some challenging hills, short and dry, well traveled and easier on the feet.

We found and reserved an AirBnB apt for tonight in the little village of Scandinavia,

Wi.  The best part, other than showers and laundry, is we didn’t even need to add extra miles to make it.  The village has a population of about 263 and is one of the oldest established villages in Wisconsin, probably no more than a couple square miles in size.  

Somehow, as small as it is, Scandinavia is easily one of our favorite places to have passed through so far.  Every business and many houses fly various Scandinavian flags in honor of the original settlers.  Brianna & I both got 1/2 pound burgers from the Norway Bar & Grill before retreating back to the luxury of our $125 a night AirBnB apt.  It doesn’t take much to make us happy these days, this place is above and beyond.  Newly renovated loft style bedroom with locally made beer and caramel candies in the fridge.

Swedish pancakes & iced coffee, not a bad way to start any day.  The next possible place we can hike to from Scandinavia and camp is Hartman Creek State Park, a shorter day.  The total miles say 14.5 miles, but our road walk back to the IAT recommended route is 3 miles and our hike into Hartman is .5, so more like a an 18 mile day in total.  In any case, we took our sweet time this morning before hiking out of town.  We visited Scandihus, a cultural crepe and pancake coffee house(that also serves ice cream) for breakfast. Scandihus is such a cool restaurant/store. They sell Scandinavian clothes and trinkets, too, but we can’t carry extra weight like that, no matter how much we might want to. Afterwards, we hit up the local bakery, Trout Bum Bakery, for second breakfast.

By the time we got our packs on and out the door, it was well past 0830.  Leaving later meant a hotter sun on our faces for the morning road walk, we powered through it well enough.

Both yesterday and today, we encountered some on the trail that we had yet to really see, trail closures.  IAT has closed some trails for high water and submerged bridges.  I think this is curious.  We have been asked to ford waist deep rivers and hike through deep bogs, are these closed trails really worse or more dangerous than those?  We had to road walk around them, so I guess I’ll never know.

Today’s hike was smooth and unrushed until about lunch time.  Brianna spotted a campground concession stand that would be open until 6pm.  From that point on, I sorely wanted to make it there before it closed.  We have all the food we need for the next couple of days, so it wasn’t that.  We had also just had a wonderful 24 hours of beer and amazing food.  There is just something about a cold pop that cranks my mental motor into overdrive.

We were about a 1.5 miles away from the concession stand with 40 minutes before 6pm when Brianna said, “I’m going to record a video, you can go as fast as you want to the store.”  Boom, I was gone.  Brianna has a saying for every time we go downhill and are physically and safely able to run it, “Thunder Cats are go!”  Let me tell you, the last mile of this trail was downhill and boy was I yelling, “Thunder cats are go!” the entire time.  No one was there to hear me, but I think it helped.  

When I felt tired, I’d remind myself, “Mountain Dew will fix that.”

When my ankle and feet began to hurt, I’d think, “I’ll just put some ice cream on those when I get there.”

I did make it in time, too.  Brianna was waiting for me at the campsite when I returned with some ice cream and pop for tonight, a couple of Gatorades for tomorrow’s longer day.

Today was a good day.  Weather looks clear for tomorrow, looking forward to the mental storms all the miles will cause us :-/.

Reservations on a thru-hike are a difficult thing.  Every day we forecast out with a plan is little hazier than the one before, a little less likely to actually happen.  On top of that, every park has its own guidelines.  Some parks, like Hartman Creek State Park, requires reservations be made at least 48 hours advance.  Other parks, like Collins County Park, wouldn’t let us do any reservations earlier than a week out.  If you wonder why we get jammed up when looking for places to stay so often, this is why.

Let’s talk about Collins County Park for a minute.  After trying and failing to reserve a spot online, we called to inquire if they had any openings… for a Monday.  The lady who answered the phone unapologetically advised us that they were full up.  When Deb picked us up that day, she drove us over to the park so we could see what was going on for ourselves.  The place was a ghost town.  Sure, all the sites had reservation tabs on them, but the dates were for the following weekend.  Are you telling me no one can camp in the empty spots during the week if someone has it reserved for Friday and Saturday?  This is in contrast to Hartman Creek, who not only let us reserve a spot, but helped us move the date forward a day when we couldn’t make it on time.  It’s also frustrating to me that many of these parks have overflow camping spots for bikers, none for hikers.

On a shade break after one of yesterday’s long road walks, we ran into a group of women hikers – LEGO, Ladies Exploring the Great Outdoors.  They recommended we attend the IAT conference in Stevens Pointe to share our experiences.  This is something I would really like to do, and I have a lot of thoughts for them.  

It’s clear that the IAT does care about thru-hikers, otherwise thru-hiker specific camping areas like Rice Lake would not exist.  What I don’t know is how much they care and how many resources they have available to improve our experiences.  I would ask them why the connecting routes (CRs) seem to go around towns like Rosholt & Scandinavia. Instead, these CRs hike past seemingly nothing, but the mileage is nearly the same.  I would ask them how it is we road walk through and next to so many publicly owned lands, but are unable to camp on them.  Camping for a thru-hiker is not the same as allowing the normals folks to camp.  Beer is too heavy to carry and we are usually too tired to deal with a having a camp fire.  We require 7 square feet for camp and you’d never even know we were there once we’ve left.

Hopefully I do not sound ungrateful.  I merely seek to understand with a side of wanting to help.  These are the thoughts hiking through my head during a 15 mile road walk, so in some ways, these are the trail’s thoughts.

There are many ways to hike the trail, thru-hiking is just one of them and not necessarily the most important of them either.  We met a man on the road a couple times today.  He is hiking every IAT mile a little bit at a time.  His strategy uses a vehicle where he starts and a bicycle to get him back to the car once he reaches his finishing point.  The LEGO ladies are hiking all the trail miles and lead Friday group hikes to get others involved in the trail.  Thru-hiking just happens to be our trail flavor and I think we can make good into better.

Today started our unlike any of the 30 days before.  We set an alarm for 0400 and actually got up!  Getting out of camp usually takes us at least an hour with breaking things down, taking time to enjoy the hot coffee and breakfast.  Hiking started around 0530, light was breaking across the horizon to guide our way.

As a whole, the day was arduous.  You know that tunnel vision feeling you sometimes get after driving a long distance in the car?  If someone later asked what you saw on the roads, you’d have no memory of any of it?  That’s what today was, except it was hiking tunnel vision.  I think the trail was nice, I’m sure it was?  We did 26.5 trail miles + .5 back to the trail from last night’s camp @ Hartman Creek + 2 more miles road walk to tonight’s camp @ Tomorrow Wood Campground.

By the time we reached the campground, we were utterly broken.  Things did turn around quickly when the campground owner, Ed, shouted us down shortly after we walked in.  He informed us that there was a pizza delivery place and drove us down to our tent camping spot, which was on the far side of the very large campground.  

I was so tired and broken, that I just straight up asked for help in the morning, “Is there any chance at all that you could give us a ride back to the trail tomorrow?”  He said, “Yes, no problem.”

Long day.  We are exhausted.

Ed, the owner of the Tomorrow Wood Campground, is an awesome person.  He ended up circling back around to our campsite about an hour after first dropping us off.  This time, Ed had cold pop and water for us.  His family has owned the campground since the 1970s when they moved away from the hustle and bustle of Milwaukee.  The campground itself has to be over 100 acres and is next to the fully fish stocked Fish Lake.  Half the campground has been cleared for tent camping sites while the other half has seasonal RVs and tiny homes under CCC pines trees.

Of all the people we have met, Ed laughed the most and the loudest.  Thank you for everything, Ed!

Last night was hard.  When even pizza does not refill your health bar to 100%, your party is in trouble.  It still felt like I was walking when I closed my eyes at night.  A very similar feeling to when I close my eyes after I’ve been on a boat fishing all day and it still feels like I’m on the water.  Sleep came to me fast and the morning came faster.

With Ed driving us to the trail at 0800, we were able to set our alarms to later than normal and sleep in to 0630.  The morning alarm went off right around the same time the thunder started.  It doesn’t take a big storm to get our attention.  We hopped out of the tent, broke camp down and ran our gear to a nearby pavilion for breakfast and coffee.  Our real motivation for the fast action was to keep the tent dry, the campground trees kept us dry from the morning dew and keeping gear dry was worth the effort.

Breaking camp down was the last thing we did quickly today.  Exhaustion from last night carried over to this morning.  We were suffering from a plague of fatigue that no sugar or caffeine could cure.  Humidity for today was at 100%, this did not help.

Even with the worn down bodies and dire mental states, we managed to find some luck today.  A hiker from Alabama, Emily, passed us while on a break yesterday, she let us know she would be in the area for another day or so and gave us her number in case we need anything.  She passed us again today, we always seem to be on a break when we meet people, and it reminded us that we need a ride into Coloma today or be doomed to a 4 mile road walk in.  Emily was good to her word and drove us into town.  The ride ended our day earlier than planned, neither of us had a problem with that.

Coloma is bigger than Scandinavia, Wi type town, though still very small.  Our hotel didn’t open for another hour so we headed over to a rundown laundry mat to wash some clothes.  The biggest riddle we had left for the day was figuring out how to get a ride back to the trail in the morning.  Our riddle ended up being an easy one, I asked the hotel co-owner, Dennis, if there were any cans around and he asked his wife, the other co-owner, if she would drive us out at 0700.

Friday is fish fry day at the local Cabin Bar & Grill, something we could not say no to.  We need a good night sleep to help counter balance how much tomorrow is going to suck. If the forecast is correct, we will be road walking 16 miles in the rain.

Chicka & Sunsets might be bringing us trail magic on the road today!  A light at the end of a very wet and stormy tunnel 🙂

Meeting and having beers with locals is always such a great time.  Our stay at the Coloma Hotel & Pub would not have been complete without having a couple beers in the pub part of the hotel.  Dennis and Sue have owned the hotel since the 90s, something of a retirement gift to themselves?  They bought it, completely gutted it and remodeled the entire thing; it took about 5 years to complete.  I’ll share a picture I took with some background info on the hotel.

I’m not sure how it came up, but a factoid I learned from Dennis and Sue that I shall not soon forget is about margarine in Wisconsin.  Did you know that until about the 50s or 60s it was illegal to have margarine in Wisconsin?  They recounted stories of how their families would smuggle in the contraband.

The Coloma Hotel & Pub is a beautiful establishment, more of a B&B feel than a hotel.  I was half expecting it to have a shared bathroom space like a lot of B&Bs do, but that was not the case. We had a single queen room with a mini-fridge, coffee, TV w/satellite (we fell asleep to Harry Potter) and a bathroom all to ourselves.  I think it was $59 a night, which is basically unheard of these days.  Thank you, Dennis & Sue!

Weather was kind to us this morning in that we were able to hike to first 8 miles before the rain started.  We skirted the dark red edges of the first couple storm fronts, allowing us to put more miles in than any other morning before; the missed miles from yesterday were fully hiked by 0930. There was also motivation in knowing that Sunsets & Chicka were bringing us Subway footlongs around 12:30pm.  No matter how bad things got, we would have friends, food and a roof for lunch.

Meeting Sunsets & Chicka, the other couple hiking the IAT that we have been chatting with, was awesome!  They have a few thru-hikes under their belt and knew exactly the things to brighten our day.  The sub and cookie were great, cold soda a bonus, but my favorite part was just getting a chance to talk and connect with them.  Their story is so interesting, hiking the AT and then setting up a hiker hostel with all of their favorite hostel amenities.  I wish we had more time, I think we would be great friends.  Thank you, Sunsets & Chicka! We know how valuable zero day time is and we enjoyed every moment :-).

Our feet were afloat with happiness after lunch.  The rain had stopped during lunch and didn’t begin to fall again for a bit after we parted ways with our new friends.  Rain is your ally, until is not.  Rain kept us cool and the humidity low.  It gave us motivation to break less and walk faster.  Yes, how I love rain… until the clouds get dark and the lightning pops closer and closer.  Until the downpour becomes fierce and the wind whips harder than the umbrella can physically with stand and has to be put away.  Brianna and I have awesome rain gear, zpack rain skirts and vertice rain jackets.  None of that matters when the rain comes in diagonally at your face, we got thumped for the last mile.

One of the amazing parts about putting yourself at the mercy of Mother Nature and her wrath is how it changes what your mind sees in the world around it.  Every tree becomes a potential friend, a potential enemy, something that should not be ignored.  Stay away from roads with fields on both sides, don’t be the tallest object in the area.  Take shelter near trees, not too small, definitely not too large, check above for widow makers.  Always count the distance between lightning and thunder.  Trust your gut.  Trust her gut.  You can make it through this.

We did make it through.  Time for sleep.  Another weather filled day is coming our way tomorrow, yay!

Today was meant to be a zero that turned into a nero, nero being a ‘near zero day’.  Our original plan for a zero day on Tuesday got fast tracked to today after the storms cleaned our clocks all yesterday.  It’s true that more storms were due today, and they did come in severe forms, but it’s a stormy kind of week and running from those is not really an option.  The real reason for our nero day is physical and mental fatigue.  Our home for the night is Adams Inn, a 4 mile march south.

We spent the morning walking through the towns of Adams & Friendship; laundry and resupply was done well before noon. Check-in at our Adams Inn hotel was not until 3pm so we hit a local pub, Jack Pine Saloon, and had a beer while chatting up the locals.  As per usual, there was a lot of confusion around what we are doing and why we are doing it, followed quickly by strong support and well wishes once we had a chance to explain it all.  They were very sad to hear we would not be passing back through after finishing the trail.

Brianna & I also had a chance to plan out the next week or so.  It is becoming quite obvious that if we are going to finish this trail, we are going to need a huge amount of miles in a relatively short period of time.  The best solution we have is to stop using the official connecting roads, make our own more efficient CRs.  If we push hard and get some luck, maybe, just maybe, we can finish this thing without jumping a section in the middle.

Horsemen ride to Wisconsin this weekend.  Their presence is most welcome! 

This is the stage of the game where the IAT begins to change.  Northern Wisconsin had challenging trails with plentiful camping, towns and resupplies were few and far between.  In the south & east, the trails are more flat and we will walk through at least one town on the daily, but camping options are extremely limited.  We have light packs and tight timelines for our tracks.

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that we will be creating our own more efficient connecting routes, that starts today.  Instead of taking the long roads further west, Brianna and I walked 7.5 miles south on Highway 13.  It was a bit hairy at times, some drivers have a tendency to angle over the white lines as they look at us and wonder, “WTF are these people doing.”  Fortunately for us, there was a big shoulder for us to walk on with flattish grass if we needed to sidestep. From Highway 13, we jumped on 13th ave and continued south on a less busy road for a while.  There are gas stations and other random businesses if we had stayed on the Highway, a trade we were more than willing to make.

If you’ve ever looked at a map of the IAT, you may have noticed that the trail has a big circle loop thing the middle.  This weird thing in the middle is what they call a bifurcation.  Hikers who arrive at the Bifurcation can go west to and through the Wisconsin Dells or go east through some sights related to John Muir’s childhood.  We chose to go west.  I have never seen the Dells before and that seemed like a good enough reason to pick one over the other.

Arriving to the Dells today, a city with this many people, this many stores and restaurants, is both cool and unsettling.  On one hand, we have so many things within walking distance and could Grubhub/DoorDash any food that is not.  On the other hand, there are people everywhere… I feel fortunate to have arrived in on a Monday.

Truth be told, this city is almost exactly like Gatlinburg, TN, and I love Gatlinburg.  Well, I love the memories I have with the people I love in Gatlinburg; hiking, drinking beer, eating trout balls.  Being at the Wisconsin Dells feels like I’m hanging out with a person who looks just like one of my best friends, but isn’t.  It’s like losing your favorite jacket of ten years and buying a new one to replace it.  Gatlinburg and the Wisconsin Dells look so similar, still so different.  Being here one night is not going to help me know the Dells any better either.  The last thing I’m going to do after a long hiking day is check out the local hikes, I promise you that.

Weather reports said the day was to be full of rain.  We got a little drizzle and nothing more.  The real weather worth watching was the sun, and I forgot to put sunscreen on, so now my arms are burnt up.  Feet are doing well, shoes smell like a dog’s butt.  New shoes are on the way and due to arrive on Friday. 650+ miles is far enough for these walking cow patties.  Seriously.  When we are walking and there is no breeze, we can smell our shoes.  It’s bad.

A coyote was trying to convince me it was a dog, casually striding down the trail and closer to me. I knew it wasn’t a dog.  I also knew it wanted to rip my flesh into pieces and have me for dinner.  The coyote’s muscles tensed as the beast lowered its head and leaped forward. My grip, already tight around the hilt of my side sword, pulled hard into a side slice that cut through flesh and bone without pause.

I didn’t know what the dream meant at the time, but as it turns out, coyotes in the dream world represent “tricky and unexpected elements in life.”  Today was full of tricky and unexpected elements.

My morning started out with a weather update text from Mel. Weather looked hot and clear of storms when we went to sleep last night.  By 0500, the maniacal weather people were predicting massive storms with high winds and a potential for tornadoes.  

With storms due to arrive by 5pm, I decided to sneak out to Dunkin’ and get Brianna a proper coffee and doughnut.  Fail.  Half a dozen cop cars surrounded the Dunkin’ building, the entrance fully coned off.  I’m not sure if the place had been robbed or if it was just vandalism, but the glass front door had been shattered into bits.

Today was HOT. We pushed through as many hiking miles as we could before the heat of the day was on us in full.  The heat punished us as we headed towards a planned lunch at the Subway in Baraboo.  

I was simultaneously too hot to eat and too hungry to keep walking.  My mind was bouncing back and forth between these two thoughts as I began walking the final  crosswalk that would lead us to the Subway parking lot.  That was precisely when an older gentleman driving a white SUV decided to do a no look left onto the street I was attempting to cross, he had no idea I was even there.  If I hadn’t seen it out of the corner of my eye and leaped back, I would have gotten hit very hard.  His SUV had fully passed the crosswalk by the time he hit the breaks and he only did so because I yelled, “Whoa!”  My brain was too fried to register any other response, I’m not even sure how I reacted quick enough to save myself.

Cold Gatorades and an air conditioned Subway helped to perk us back up for a bit, helped us recover from my near accident.  The thing about crushing heat indexes is that it only takes 5-10 minutes before you’re mentally defunct once again.  We walked as far as we could as often as we could but it wasn’t good enough; dark thunderous clouds were ahead of schedule and rolling in our direction.  2 miles away from camp for the night and the speed of slow is all we could muster.

Enter our newest trail angel, Ron.  Brianna had been on the phone for 15-20 minutes trying to sort out a ride when a black and white collie appeared out of nowhere, jumping into the nearby river and scattering geese like bowling pins into the water.  We were taking shelter in a large brick pavilion area when Ron asked if we needed a ride and agreed to drive us the final 2 off trail miles.  Thank you, Ron!!

A very interesting day.  What dreams may come?

It was another hot day, and by the end of it, I’d be carrying two backpacks and will have lost my phone to the bottom of Lake Wisconsin.

Devils Lake State Park is as treacherous as it is beautiful, and beauty is the reason it ranks #1 in Wisconsin for visitors each year.  In some parts, rocks are cemented into winding staircases that go up and up and up.  In other parts, jagged rocks have been worn into footpaths where we, and the others before us, had to step/climb our way up.  It was a challenging day, though far from the most challenging day we have had so far.

The Devil’s lake hike has three major climbs in about a 5 mile span.  We got through the first climb without much trouble, stopped to enjoy the lake views and even made a funny video as we went.  Somewhere during the second climb, Brianna noticed a familiar pain in her back that seemed to get worse as we went along.  We did our best to stop more frequently so she could stretch, take some Advil, even moved some of her equipment to my bag to lighten her load, nothing seemed to help.  Our bags have been as light as they have ever been, so I was even able to carry her entire bag strapped around the front of me for a couple miles to see if a walk without weight might help loosen the muscles.  No luck.

In addition to Brianna’s worrisome pains, we were also trying to outrun another storm with tornado potential.  The goal was to make it to a pub just before the Merrimac Ferry, and we did make it just before 3pm.  We would wait out the storm at the pub and plan out what the rest of the day might look like, try to figure out how we might get Brianna to a bed and be more comfortable, how to get out of the sweltering heat.  Our hotel for the night was still a solid 10 miles away and Uber options didn’t seem to exist.

Brianna & I were sitting at a picnic table waiting for our pub food to arrive when a woman and her daughter, Jess & Bella, sat next to us and struck up a conversation.  Jess asked about our hiking and offered us her basement as a spot to crash for the night if we were interested.  I’m not sure how these people keep finding us in our hours of need, but Jess is another solid new Wisconsin friend.  We ate our pub meals and piled into her car for another chance night at a random kindly stranger’s house.

Of all the people we have met on this trip, Jess is probably the one we have gotten to know the best in the short time we had together.  Her husband passed away about five years ago, shortly after they moved to Merrimac, and they have been there ever since.  Instead of going back to her house to crash, she called her friend Dave and got us a boat ride on and a proper tour of Lake Wisconsin.  Brianna’s back was feeling modestly better by this point, or at least not worse, so we went on a boat ride!

A moment of honesty here.  Before today, I had no idea Lake Wisconsin existed.  Turns out that it does exist and it’s more of a dammed river than it is a lake, with hidden stumps and sand bars, all sorts of danger to water-crafts with uninformed captains.  We floated around for a bit, got some dam pictures, shot the shit about life.

Both Dave and Jess have history in Michigan and the surrounding area.  At first I thought it was weird, such a coincidence that we have been to the same places and experienced some of the same things, but now I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all.  Brianna & I have had a lot in common with many of the people we’ve met along the trail and it doesn’t even have anything to do with the trail itself.  I’m only now, at the age of 39, coming to the realization that the more you do, the more things you experience, the more people you will be able to relate to.  If all you do is play video games and work, ride 4-wheelers and farm, then your relatable world stays within those boundaries.  If you continuously put yourself out there, travel and try new things like video games with a stranger one day and 4-wheeling on a farm the next day, your world expands dramatically in just a small window of time.

The boating trip was amazingly fun, right up til the end.  To disembark the boat, we had to slide off the front end and into the water.  I have a hiking habit of putting my phone into the right pocket of my shorts, where it sticks out halfway because my pocket isn’t deep enough to fit the entire thing.  When I slid off the front of the boat, I slide right side first, popping the phone up out of my pocket and into the murky waist deep waters of Lake Wisconsin.  We all searched the lake floor with our feet, no luck.  Brianna tried calling it to see if the screen would light up and be visible, we saw nothing.  It was gone, forever.

I want to say today was a good day.  The best I can say is that it was a day that could have been worse than it was and I’m glad that it wasn’t.  Jess and Bella are awesome new friends, we’ve got that much!

🎶

I tremble

They’re gone eat me alive, if I stumble

They’re gonna eat me alive

Can you hear my heart beating like a hammer

Help, I’m alive, my heart keeps beating like a hammer

🎶 (Help I’m Alive, by Metric)

The words you never want to hear on a thru-hike, “I don’t think I can hike.  I think I’m done.”  That’s a paraphrase, it was around 0500 and emotionally blurry.  Brianna’s back had tightened up overnight in a painful and familiar way.  I squeezed her hand. There is no appropriate response, nothing that will do.  Thoughts spiral and shoot from this hike and on into the future, if you let them.

I’ve always had it in my mind that one of us would eventually go down with a back related injury.  Expecting and experiencing are two very different things.  Back problems are part of who we are, and not by choice.  These situations challenge the best in all of us.  Do we bow to the devil’s staircase or do we keep looking for a way push up and over? 

Conversation quickly moved to how she could still help me finish the hike, we didn’t have to both be done.  Now it was my turn for internal strife.  Do I want to finish this hike alone?  Do we Romeo and Juliet the adventure right here and draw curtains to a close?  Too much.  I tabled my doubts for future discussions. We were at our new friend Jess’s house (who we didn’t want to worry because she would have dropped everything to help us) and I had no phone to help with our logistical problems. If I am going to continue hiking, we needed to quickly find Brianna a ride to Lodi and somewhere to haven while I walk into town.

One of the many amazing things about Brianna is how effective she becomes when angry, and she was furious at the situation.  She had a ride lined up with the local IAT coordinator, Carla, on the other side of the Merrimac Ferry by 0630.  Brianna would hang with Carla at her wellness center while I hiked and we would figure out what to do next afterwards.  Things like getting me a phone would have to wait, so I took Brianna’s and did my best to push through the miles and reunite with her again quickly.

I made the 10-12 miles into Lodi, WI in good time, was in town and stuffing my face with the fresh fruit Carla had left me by 1pm.  Verizon does not have much coverage in Lodi, which made planning more speculative than specific. We knew that the city of Middleton wasn’t more than a 20 minute drive and had hotels next to a Verizon store, so that became the day’s next goal.  Brianna had seen a chiropractor for the first time in her life while I was hiking and was feeling better, but still very sore, walking for her would be kept to a minimum.

After listening to our plan, such as it was, Carla introduced us to Crystal, an amazing lady who would hook us up with a ride into Middleton.  If I had to guess, Crystal is around my age and has had a life full of adventure as well.  On the drive over to Middleton, she recounted stories of Peace Corps in Africa, camp counseling troubled youths in the Uintas of Utah, a life of service that was also self-serving to an adventurer’s heart.  Our time with her was short and impactful, a person worth mentioning and remembering, a starchild to be met again.

I was able to acquire a new phone and book a nearby hotel rather quickly after Crystal dropped us off in Middleton.  The Horsemen were in Illinois playing arcade games when I alerted them to our new and complicated situation.  In classic horsemen style, they have booked a room in our hotel and are riding into assist a day earlier than originally planned.

This adventure may yet be saved.