Natalie on the IAT: Reporters and Sean visit, Cambellsport VFW, mile ~ 942

We survived the rain storm with no damage. Jenni slept with her sunglasses on to din the lightening, and I just ignored the fact I might be blown away. I was too busy imagining if a tornado warning would pop up on my phone that the lowest and only shelter within a mile was the tiny little bathroom 40 feet away with its dug-out poop hole. Death by tornado or poop hole... I couldn't decide so I just thought that decision would have to be made when the time came.

The day was very hot and humid and we were in the sun a lot, but we got to stop for lunch in Delafield and we took a lot of breaks. Didn't quite make the miles I wanted, but that's okay. We ended in Hartbrook Park and were picked up by my friends Phil and Jolene. We stopped at the store and got cookies (I love cookies, they are a weakness of mine) and Belgian Red and were off to their place. Showers and a delicious homemade meal followed and lots of catching up. Man do I love that family. We even escaped the rain shower that night :)

Such a fantastic night with friends :)

Watching there rain... Through a window!!!

The next morning Jolene dropped us off and we were met in Hartbrook Park by Channel 12 news from Milwaukee. I have never done a TV segment before and we walked across a bridge about 7 times total. But Tim and Dave were a lot of fun the segment turned out really well. I got the microphone at first and Jenni got a go-pro. She is now an official TV footage person. WISN 12 News clip

We didn't get all that far that day, but had some pizza for dinner, out of a freshly cleaned oven, so hopefully it didn't contain oven cleaning stuff and we slept with a view of Holy Hill. The next morning, Jenni is soaked with dew because of not having her rain fly on, so she takes off early. I let my stuff dry in the sun and continue on later. After 6ish miles I was planning to stop and use the bathroom at the base of Holy Hill. As I near the area I hear the school busses. Not the motors, the children. Its like the cartoons where kids are hanging out the windows just screaming and making noise. That's exactly what this was. I was still in the woods and safe from the chaos and I looked at the map for the next available bathroom. It was a long ways away. After some thinking, I walked toward the park. The kids are barreling off the bus with gigantic cooler and they are going to eat lunch. Jenni pops in her ear plugs and I am green with envy. She and I hang out there long after the kids go up to Holy Hill and two guys come up to talk to us as we are eating. Here is a snippet of the conversation:

Guy 1 at park: Maybe we should go George (name has been changed) these girls are in the middle of eating. He says this after guy 2 has grilled us with questions about hiking for the last 10 minutes)
Guy 2 at park: I like to sit here. (on the one picnic table we are at instead of the 10 empty others)
Guy 1: what are you girls doing the hike for?
Jenni: We are hiking with Warrior Hike, a program for veterans to get into nature.
Guy 1: Oh, so veterans come hike with you?
Jenni: Sometimes they do....
Natalie: We're the veterans. (Monotone)

We continue on our walk for that day, stop in Slinger for some yummy food and the next morning are joined by Chelsey a reporter from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She had been planning to join us for part of our hike since the beginning and it finally worked out. Katie, a photographer joined us for a little bit too. That day poor Chelsey had to put up with Jenni and me and all our weirdness. There was some section hiking and a lot of road walk. We were planning to camp at Timber Trail Campground, and after it started raining I called there to see if there was a trail there from the road. On the map it is just floating out there so it was hard to tell. No trail, but the camp ground guy came out to pick us up :) Yeah!

I directed the news people to join me in my 'ponder'pose. This is ponder-worthy news right here.

We got to the camp ground and the secret we had been hiding from Chelsey all day was finally revealed. Sean Gobin the founder of Warrior Hike was at the camp ground waiting for us with his Deuce and a Half. He was on his way over to the Mississippi for Warrior Paddle's kick off week and stopped in to see us on his way. I got the biggest greeting hug and it was very much so needed and appreciated. Sometimes a person just needs a real hug.

Dueces!

That night it rained constantly, and we hung out in the rec hall that had beer, ate pizza and played corn-hole. Having Chelsey and Sean with us made for a really fun night, but Chelsey being a reporter, we hoped the article would come out okay. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Article Have I mentioned that I have eaten more pizza on this walk than I ate all last year combined... and maybe more than I have eaten the last two years combined? I mean, I like pizza and all... but I am looking forward to having other options more readily available to me. Think I may take a few months break from it.

Sweet Victory in corn-hole

So the bar closed around 1030, our tents were still not set up and its still raining. We hid out in the 2.5 ton vehicle for a bit and then get on with the inevitable and Chelsey and I set up our tents in the rain. Jenni crashed on the floor inside the truck. I was up pretty late that night with text messages and the rain. The next morning, everything was soggy. Yuck. We packed up and headed to Perkins for breakfast where I spread my tent out to dry and use the truck as a drying rack. The truck was not acting healthy on the way to breakfast and when Sean was taking Jenni and I back to the trail, we ended up on the side of the on-ramp. We walked to a rental car place, waited waited waited for a ride and then to the tow place. Sean was on his way in the rental after dropping Jenni and I off.

Jenni... Ummm can you fix it? I mean, it was your Army job....

We had a very late start, the day was extremely humid and we just gave up on our mile goal completely. So much so, that when we went near a McDonald's we went inside and spent 3 hours in it on the WiFi. That was my first hamburger from a McDonald's in I don't know how long. It was under 2 bucks! So crazy cheap! No wonder why it might not be real meat.

Ice cream? Yes.

Yeah McDonalds?? Seriously only good enough for breakfast, just saying.

We started walking again with our goal to get into the Northern Kettle Moraine to the first shelter. We strolled in around 9pm and two people were already in their tent outside the shelter, they were fine with us joining the area. We pitch our tents, it is still 78% humidity and 80+ degrees but finally starting to cool down. We wanted to get an early morning start so we set our alarms for 6am. Alarm goes off... I wake up and it seems like it might rain. For the first time the entire trip I am only in my underwear and bra because it was so hot. We start to put our rain flies on our tents and the wind comes rolling down the way swaying trees in every direction. "Are we going to have a tornado?" I yell to Jenni? and she says "you may want to put some clothes on!" And instead of the rain fly I threw on my shorts and tshirt and started to grab all my stuff and run to the shelter. The other two campers were doing the same thing. It starts raining and trees are cracking and falling all over. I talk with the other campers and we all wait it out for a while and Jenni falls back to sleep for a few hours. I hide under a rain fly for a while to get out of the mosquitoes and can't take it anymore and start to walk since the rain had stopped.

That day we have a lot of company on the trail because of a Trail Dog's race. It had a 50k, a marathon and a half marathon among other distances. I picked up so many small branches and small trees along the path that day. I do that anyway, but I felt bad for the runners. The race started late, things were muddy and there were downed trees and sticks all over. It would have been tough conditions.

And the race goes on

Lots of debris on the trail from the wind.

When we got to our pick up point that day, we were saved from another storm and a tornado watch by the Cambellsport VFW. We checked into our hotel, got cleaned up and then went to the laundry mat that comes prepped with shot glasses and then to get food from the store. We also crashed a wedding at the American Legion in town :) all before ending up eating at Bublitz... Did someone say BUFFET? with the VFW members.