Gandy Dancer

John and Lauren drove me up to Potawotami State Park a few days ago. It was a blast driving up with those two. They both want to maximize on the potential for fun. So, the whole way, we goofed about, laughing out our windows. We stopped at Lake Michigan (which we claimed as the ocean), dipped our feet in, and felt the chilly water lap up on our shins. Then, we stopped at a sunflower farm and took one for our own, furtively slicing off a yellow face and driving away with it. Lauren loved that.

After a hug, they drove away from the trailhead and south to Sturgeon Bay. I did the same, on foot. The trail travelled through open stands of oak. I walked beneath a waving canopy. The breeze dropped down from time to time to cool off my enthusiastic smile. Soon, I hit road and walked through a town that I came to realize was Sturgeon Bay. John and Lauren were still there (only 2 hours) and we met for a drink and free soup at a happy hour bar. What a way to start a hike through Wisconsin! He also returned my knife I loaned him to cut off the sunflower head.

That night, I watched a softball tournament until dark and eventually made my way to a cornfield, which acted as the side of a six-foot corridor, with a hedgerow on the other side. It was stealth camping, which I will have to do the entire way along the trail. The next morning, I woke with the sun and ate a tortilla with peanut butter next to the scraping corn stalk leaves. It's nice to get going so early in the morning. The air is cool and I can't feel the humidity as harshly. The entire day followed an old railroad bed, now a straight shot of crushed gravel with a verdant tunnel arching over me. I could for miles down that straight trail. Anyone with any sense of humor has to laugh at that when they know they're going to walk through it. It's disheartening to see, but slowly the trail mindset eases into place and I realize that I'm not trying to get anywhere, so I may as well keep going. The roads are great to cross. They feel like state-lines felt on the AT. A nice little landmark that symbolizes progress. It's fun to imagine the history of the railroad, knowing that gandydancers slugged away at the earth, and firemen, hands packed with coal and calluses, stoked the fires below the cars, and engineers, faces weathered and eyes afixed screamed the trains up and down the Lake Michigan coast.

I take a lot of breaks. Every few miles, I sit down in front of a nice view of an old barn or a silo peaking out of an ocean of corn. I sit and drink water, jot a few notes in my notebook, or read a page of Population: 485 by Michael Perry. It's an appropriate read for my situation. It's a humorous and tragic book about getting reacquainted with a place he had once loved. I feel his words strongly and I get a real hoot out of his insight into Wisconsin culture.

In Forestville, I stopped, considering finding a place to camp, as I had done more miles than I had expected for the day. I was tired and my body ached. Forestville is a quiet town where it was clear who was from town and who was not. Whether by the vehicle they drove or the pattern of speech, I could decipher, while eating a brat outside of the gas station, who was passing through to get to the peninsula to eat cherries and play on the bay. I sent home a few things that I immediately recognized as worthless and chatted for an hour with the Post Office worker. We had a good laugh together, although it was my recognition of her accent that really heightened the experience.

Someone told me it was only 11:30 in the morning so I immediately packed up my lighter pack and kept walking. "Two more miles and I'll camp next to the Ahnapee River," I told myself. Within a minute of that I saw a sign warning me of incarceration if I stepped off the trail. A little harsh, I thought. All the land around the river was marsh or residential, and by that time, I was feeling pretty good. My lower joints all hurt and every muscle stretching the length of the backs of my legs pierced, but my mind was strong. That's all that matters. If I let my mind wander, the pain abates. It's easy.

Leaving the marshy land, I spied an opening in an evergreen stand. I hopped off trail, risking the potential of lawful punishment, and set camp. Again, my routine of water, writing, and reading, went along until I fell asleep. It was a deep sleep. I woke and saw the clouds had been replaced by blue skies. With a bag of peanut M&Ms in my pack, I couldn't resist. Natalie had sent me away with those. She knows me all too well. I call it the simple man's GORP. Again, I abandoned the idea of camping.

Algoma was only a few miles away and I had to resupply food. So, I figured I'd camp a mile outside of town. At Ahnapee State Trails Campground, Joe the caretaker gave me a free spot to sleep. It rained like hell last night. The wind whipped rain against my tent for a couple hours, bending my tent poles down to my knees, then popping back up with the echoing cacophony of thunder. Lighting lit up the inside of my portable abode and water began seeping through everywhere.

By morning, the rain had stopped and again I woke at sunrise. The hike into Algoma this morning was wonderful. A cool breeze swept through my hair and beard, glittering my face with mist. I'm really feeling the love for Wisconsin that I grew up with. It foments my ardor for hiking and ensures that the Trail is for me.

"Forward!" as the state motto goes.