Walking 7 miles of country road followed by 4 miles of fast highway traffic isn't a great morning hike but we did it. The day turned into a great relaxing break meeting a bunch of fun folks. First off, I emailed a listed trail angel named Nikki letting her know we were heading into town. Then, we walked. We passed a pizza place with buffet but didn't open until 11 - it's only 9:30. As we passed a gas station across the road, a guy waved at us and hollered so we crossed over to see what was up. This guy is hiking the PNT also and had Melanie McManus' book 'Thousand Miler' about the Ice Age Trail and had just read about me in it, checked out hikingdude.com and saw our live map showing that we were walking his way. How weird! Besides that, his trail name is 'Parks' that we saw in the registry awhile back. He hiked out today so we'll probably see him on trail again. After meeting Parks, we got a snack at Steins grocery just down the road to sit and figure out where to stay and resupply since I had no reply from Nikki yet. Just as we sat on the demo patio chairs outside the store, Nikki replied and was there 5 minutes later taking us to her home where we are tenting for the night! Another traveler named Lars from Sweden is here tonight on his way bicycling around America. Showers, food purchase, laundry, and loitering around town took the rest of the day. Nikki's husband, Jeremy, made dinner and a friend named Bob came by to visit. So, it was a nice time chatting with new friends about 'stuff'. We're loaded with food for our push to Idaho and I hope some water flavoring and a couple new food choices will help my appetite. Tomorrow has a big climb up Mt. Webb right after I walked 17490 steps on the trail today.
I traveled about 11 miles today.
a long roadwalk.