Out of the Frying Pan, into the Kettle

or: a cautionary tale about both driving and walking.


We went up to Wisconsin's Kettle Moraine Park to hike through the fall leaves on Friday and Saturday. There was beautiful scenery and wonderful muddy/leafy fall smells everywhere. The location was wonderful for long hikes, but we did get a little in over our heads since the only shelter available was 16 miles (at the time we thought 14) from our car. At this park you can only sleep at the shelters if you are hiking the trail, so we had to get to that destination in order to be in the park overnight. All in all it didn't take too much time - we started hiking about 10am and got to the shelter about 5:15pm, but that is a lot of walking in one day coming in coldd. The last few miles were pure torture, and we definitely had blisters and sore muscles. It was also such a nice weekend that we were wishing for it to be 10 degrees cooler.
The shelter was nice, and we used our new camp stove and cooked up some tuna helper, while commenting on the amount of salt that people considered acceptable for a standard dinner. Good thing we started hiking with about 14 pounds of water! We also made instant oatmeal for breakfast. Jon had a spreadsheet documenting all the weights of what we were carrying in the new packs we got from his recognition program - we think we started with about Jon 22 pounds and Laura 16, most of which for both of us was water.

In the morning, we did not think we could hike 16 miles back to our car. But we are smart and resourceful, so we got to a near road and after 2 miles hiking we got a crazy old coot in a pickup to drive us at least some amount in the right direction on his way to fish. We hiked another 5 or so miles up another road until a very nice lady picked us up and took us to our car. As you can imagine, we were very grateful. So we hiked about 23 miles all told in those 2 days, and left for Chicago at about 10:45am.

Unfortunately, though, there was lots of construction on the Edens, so although we zipped through the first 1 1/4 hours in Wisconsin, we took 2+ hours to go the first 28 miles in Illinios, and although we were happy to be in our car and not on our feet, it just goes to show that when you try to GET anywhere you really aren't in control of your own destiny.

We spent the rest of Saturday limping and wincing around and wearing comfy slippers, at least after we showered. 23 miles in 85 degree weather certainly felt sort of like Colorado, and we were very, very stinky by the time we got back to our house.

So, we are grateful for warm showers, our own house, packable food, the beauty of nature, parks to hike in within a few hour drive of Chicago, and people who are willing to pick up tired looking, non-serial-killer-type hikers with backpacks. We are not thankful for the Illinois transit authority.

Hope you all enjoyed the wonderful October weekend. Check out the photos I posted...