Beautiful days, making it to mile 500 and the trek's half way point!!!

Aaaaaalright, I am starting this blog out with me starting out behind in miles since I had been lazy and didn't want to walk in the rain out of Hartman Creek... So I waited to the next day and walked out dry with it on my mind that I needed to put in some mileage! It was June 16th and I had some trail in the morning followed by road walking... A lot of road walking.

Well, it was a fantastically gorgeous day outside and not too many miles after starting I read a park sign explaining I was in Karner Blue Butterfly territory, which is oak savanna with blooming wild lupines. I

have heard a lot about this little Butterfly in my college courses and had never seen one. So I sat and walked a bit in an area and checked out the wild lupines to see if I could see the caterpillars or cocoon. No such luck after about 10 minutes so I went on my way. I hit another beautiful area and take a short video of it saying I hope to see the

Blue Karner Butterfly - endangered

Butterfly and literally two seconds after I turned off the camera one goes fluttering by me!!! I then waited for my opportunity for a photo, and there were a handful of butterflies, one of which was ultra accommodating of a camera being shoved at it! Awesome start to the day! Always good to see an endangered species living life out on its own :)

Wild Lupine

Another great thing about getting to the dry, sandy soil, and more open trail areas is there are a lot less ticks. Ticks dehydrate and like dampness (northern WI was very very mucky). The sun and the more open woods keep the mosquitoes a little more under control as well. I love sun and wind.

But to top it off, I am hitting wild flowers in what I assume to be their prime right now. Each day got progressively more beautiful. Some people use the expression of "oh that baby is so cute I could just eat him up!" - normally in a fake high pitched voice. I have never for the life of me understood that expression and if I ever have a kid I will be removing them from the cannibal's reach immediately. However... I am on day FOUR of no rain and the most amazing wild flowers WI can produce that I could seriously EAT WI UP!! (There are actual edible things out there so its not even as weird as the baby saying)

I popped out to the road sat down on the side and ate some snacks and pulled out my map. I wouldn't make it to the next segment that day, meaning camping would be a challenge and I would need some food. I was paying attention to my map when I heard a soft pitter patter behind me. I turned and about jumped out of my skin because there was a little-ish dog that was about a foot away! The closest house was a couple of football fields away. I had to do some pet pet petting but its friend was watching up the street and seemed to summon the little dog back with 'the look' and the little dog went home. Anyway, I had determined to walk into the town of Wild Rose. It would add about six miles of road walk on total between the two days, so instead of following the exact road walk path, I instead tacked on a little extra and walked my butt into Wild Rose. (You can manipulate the road walks just can't skip segments).

On the way into town it smelled like pine so strongly in some parts one would think you're in a taxi cab. I met a cyclist who

Roads can be pretty too

pulled over to talk to me, Cranberry Jerry, and he was on a five day cycle/camping trip to his cabin. He instructed me I need a trail name and we talked about trails a lot. For those that are unfamiliar, a trail name is often given to long distance hikers and references something unique about that person. Sean and Brian way back when we began gave Jenni and I names, but they are not going to stick. So I'm nameless. Example was just above, Jerry the cyclist worked at a cranberry bog so he is Cranberry Jerry. Cheryl Strayed who wrote Wild gave herself the 'Strayed' I have some ideas for what mine could be... But I'm waiting.

As I was walking into town I Googled places to stay. I had two options, called the first one... 25 bucks a night and had availability. Saaaweeet!! Ya, it had shared shower/bathroom. No big deal to this lady. I can smell myself. Walked in, got my room, showered with a bar of soap, which was now the second shower in a row I had to use a bar of soap for shampoo. It gets the grease out but makes your hair feel.... thick? squeeky? Ah well... It's clean. I then walked to the dollar store and grabbed some grub to pack and then over to the Pioneer Pub for two Spotted Cows and a Reuben (sans the thousand island dressing -ick). 

The waitress gave me her free desert when I ordered the rhubarb crumble, which was the worst rhubarb crumble I've ever had. But it was really nice of her.

With all that road walking I had burnt my neck pretty badly. Officially a red neck. But it just so happened that Kathy from the Amherst VFW visit had given me a sample size of aloe. I think she might be psychic.

About six or seven road miles out of Wild Rose I got to my first segment. It was nice one and the day was pretty. Later on I took a rest on a back road and waited for a reporter. She came and we chatted and when we got up we were sticking to the pavement. Good thing I have new pants

Tar-butt

coming because I have road tar all over the seat of my pants now... Kind of embarrassing walking around like that... But, it is what it is. Fell asleep to the sound of whippoorwills that night.

The next day surpassed the Dells of the Eau Claire Segment for beauty. It was a few acres solid of wild flowers. One of the most beautiful things I have seen. Ever. I've always wanted to be in that field of flowers that makes it into calendar photos... And now I have been. Think it's my most favorite spot ever. And I have been quite a few places. I'm so happy I went thru at the time I did because its only that pretty while the blooms last. I hit it perfectly. Super lucky.

I stopped in Richford at Johanna's bar that afternoon for some cheesy bread, two Summer Shandys and most importantly, a phone charge. I walked for about six more miles and I started to see a lot of deer, including a mom with two fawns. Of which once I started them, one of the babies ran straight at me and then stopped a few feet

Coming at me!

to my left and just looked at me! Super cute!! But all those deer made for an interesting night. I was in a logging area and there weren't that many tracks that night, but when I woke up there were tracks... Which makes sense because I fell asleep to and woke up to lots of snorting and even some scratching on my tent! It was not the most restful night sleep I'll admit. I kept picturing the Tommy Boy scene of the deer waking up in the car, except this time the deer would be destroying my tent... Or a racoon would be all ravenous for my ramen noodles and

It has a lot of salt they say... Well it's just plain delicious and I rub salt out of my eyebrows.

attack me. I got up that morning, looked out my tent... deer... followed by snorting. I was up and at 'em earlier than ever before though because I was meeting my friend Kathryn at 845 about 2ish miles away! I was walking by 720, and walking that early was nice. My stuff was dewy, but now that it's not freezing when I poke out of the sleeping bag I could get used to earlier mornings.

I was very close to the interstate so I went under a bridge and then thru a big culvert to safely cross. It was nice. I got to a rest

Crossing under the interstate

stop, cleaned up, felt like a trucker lady and then went to find the unofficial connection route from the truck stop to the road. I bumbled thru some brushy land and popped out on the road and to where

Luxurious morning

Kathryn was waiting. After some time of figuring out logistics, I had Burger King breakfast (first time ever) and then got a motel room reserved where I dropped my bag and Kathryn dropped her bicycle. The camping areas are very limited in this area so I'll go with cheap motels if possible. We then went to stage her car and walked about 7.5 miles on the road back to the hotel. I totally thought it would be a longer day but it was so nice to have a short day. We start walking and I am mowing down the cherries

Does this girl know me, or does she know me.

she brought me!! I asked her to bring fruit and I knew grapes and nectarines were coming, but she knows how much I love cherries. Best ever surprise! We walk and talk talk talk. So great. When we got to town we went to get lunch at a local pub and she biked back to her car. To top off the visit, we went for ice cream and she left for home :)

Headed back to her car

Ice cream celebration? No. Just wanted ice cream and to talk more :)

Then I took a shower with real shampoo (good, because my scalp was beginning to

Hair was getting pretty gross

hurt... No joke), I popped some blisters and put thread thru one of them. Put Epson salt in the sink and dipped my feet... And then looked at my maps. I confirmed that I made the 500 mark! And I'm at about mile 580 on the map, so I am half way complete with this trek. I jumped a lot trying to get a joyous looking photo. Tried about  10 camera settings.

Trying to get the auto take seeing right on the camera...

I went on this on purpose!

Turtles are out in force!

So cute! Ran right at me and realized it was running toward what it was running from, so just stopped and looked at me.

String thru my blister on big toe to keep it open

Left is lunch lady, right is naturalist