Natalie on the IAT: Back at it. Mile 278

I must admit, after going to Madison, seeing my fiends and family and sleeping in comfy beds, it took a bit to get pumped up about starting to walk again. Ticks, mosquitoes, cold nights, dewy mornings, RAIN. It.... it just took me a minute. I am going to have to make up roughly 80 miles of trail I missed at a later date, so up top I subtracted and am at about that mileage... 278. According to the databook, tonight I'm at mile 358.

Okay, soooo getting back on the trail was supposed to happen Saturday morning and it kind of did. I wanted to try out my shoes with inserts so I chose to start on this really weird and in my opinion dumb part of the trail that is an out and back. Its yellow blazed... But its out and back. That way I had my other boots still in the car as backup. I walked it all except for a tiny little bit because that trail was seriously flooded and I was getting rained on and eaten alive by mosquitoes. After the out and back would have been all road walking for the rest of the day... Instead, I chose to check into the hotel early and just add the whopping nine miles (counting the 3.5 I did actually do) to the already 80 I had stacked up from being gone. BUT found out my inserts work great and my backup shoes went back home. Mission accomplished.

Got to the hotel, something was screwed up and so the hotel had booked us a room at the hotel across the street for free. Saaweet. The VFW had made the reservation so worked out for their treasury ;)

This VFW visit was special for two reasons. Reson one is because Ryan is a member and I was on this last deployment with him, and in the same unit for a few years before that. Reason two is because Ryan got me into the VFW, so I was visiting MY VFW! Which I had never been to.

The visit was a lot of fun. They had a pot luck for us with a ton of delicious food and drinks were on hand too. Ryan had picked me up at the hotel with his friend Jason and showed me two establishments in town ;) tried a Moscow Mule to and it was yummy and strong. When we got to the VFW I finally saw Jenni again and her friend Dave who she had been hiking with through the very rainy week. Everyone at the post was very welcoming. My name was even on the wall of members! AND Jenni and I rocked our new shirts :)

Great group!

That. Was. TASTY!

My VFW in my new shirt!

Trying a Moscow Mule. Yum!

My name on the wall! :)

The next morning Ryan dropped me at the trail... And shit was serious this day, no <4 miles for this girl... Try 14! I wasn't planning to go that far, but with my new shoes, and my kind of healed up enough feet I was cruising. Nope - that's partly a lie. The real reason I went so fast is because of the mosquitoes. I couldn't stop for photos or I would be eaten. Some sections I almost ran through. Most were low-lying and it was really wet out still from all the rain. Today I got a new bug spray since mine was getting low. Its called Ben's and its awesome.

Yesterday was a good day overall besides the bugs. I did find a super random sleeping bag at the side of the trail about two miles

in from the road. No body was inside and I yelled hello to no answer. I left it. Weird.

I also got lost once. GRUMBLE! it was in a very nice segment with a whole bunch of recreation trails and new trail was being built to include Ice Age Trail. I was even paying attention. But I ended going on new IAT which morphed into new mountain bike trail. But it had yellow ribbon hanging from trees. However according to GPS, I was going total opposite direction of correct. I walked back along the trail and could not find where I had met the trail I was on. Their was horse trail, mountain bike trail, ice age trail, and then also logging in the area -hence a lot of the new trails since they had to be rebuilt. I could tell from the GPS I was close to the trail so instead of going down random paths I cut through the woods and popped out on the IAT which was very well marked. (It would be...) Also

... the path was clearly marked no horse, but horses suck at covering their tracks and poo.

When I got done hiking around 6 pm I called Ryan as he had offered to get me if I wanted to stay inside. It was supposed to get close to freezing and after a bug filled day I called him. He showed up with a Gatorade for me AND a pizza we shared. WHAT? It was great. We went to Walmart and then to get a burger and a drink as well.

That night I washed clothes and afterwards sprayed them with Permethrin to help with

ticks and mosquitoes. I proceeded to sleep like a rock. Guess being all pampered inside for a week I was no longer used to the hiking.

That brings me to today. It was a great day. I also only did 8 glorious miles and stopped at 4pm. Yesterday I did 14 miles in 6.5 hours. Today I did 8 miles in about 5 hours. I also took lots of photos, some really long breaks at pretty places and climbed to the top of Lookout Mountain Tower.

Look at that Beyonce blowing in the wind hair! Visibly holding on tightly.

Stairs are more like a ladder at the top.

Happier without wind... Still holding on

Breakfast Club...

Climb that? I have to! It's on the trail!

My brain said in an annoyed tone... "Natalie.... you would literally have to try to fall off this thing or trip in a very weird manner, just because its super windy, does not mean you will be blown off." That's what my brain says, my body says in a semi-frantic tone "Holy Schniekies this is reeaaaly up there and its crazy windy! And you are a klutz that WOULD fall just right to get through those rails! You best keep three points of contact at all times there little Miss!" Up in the top it was enclosed and felt safer... I mean if stoners (from the graffiti its a lot of them) can get up there, and 'feisty' teenagers... I can too!

I stopped at a semi-real campground area tonight. Its close to 4-wheeler trails. Which is fine I guess. But here is my gripe about hiking on 4-wheeler trails... People on large powerful machines like to do things to show that power is useful- like go mudding. Well that 600 (???) horsepower 4 -wheeler can get through that 3 inch deep puddle, I assure you... But I only have 2 human feet power and I hate 3 inch mosquito breeder, get your shoes soaked puddles! So sometimes the 4 wheeler trails are a welcome break. At other times it makes me say uuhhhg. Btw, four-wheeling is fun, I'm not knocking it.

Jenni and I are still not hiking together. She and Dave hadn't made it to the pick up point/where I came back on the trail. She will catch up to me eventually and I look forward to it, right now I'm just enjoying my time and thoughts. This is the first time we don't go through any towns between our pick up points, so I have six days worth of food with me. Heavy!

"Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect." -Alan Cohen