We seem to have run out of Native American town names, now that we are 200 miles into our hike…

I checked the weather last night, and saw that today would bring afternoon thunderstorms. When I checked again this morning, the forecast included the word severe, as well as dangerous lightning, hail, and possible tornado. Uh oh! We have eleven miles to walk today, and have to get to the Post Office in Slinger.

We got up early, and were on the road by 6:45. The sun was shining, but the sky told us there would be change before too long. The West Bend segment took us on a meandering trail along Silver Creek and around Lucas Lake, and included a boardwalk to get us over some of the boggy parts.
The trail abruptly ended and dumped us out on another road walk – one with no shoulder or safe place to walk. About 8 miles along, one of the Nice People of Wisconsin pulled over and, exclaiming that we did not look like axe murderers, offered us a ride.

Chris is an archeology professor at the University of Wisconsin, and he was lost, so he said he may as well take us where we wanted to go. I looked up the address he needed on Google Maps, and he drove us into Slinger, where we had mailed ourselves our next bunch of maps, before we left Chesapeake.

After picking up our envelope, we spent some time answering questions from Curious Townfolk, who we encounter everywhere we go. They want to know where we are from, where we are going, what’s in our packs, what we eat, where we sleep, and if we have a car parked nearby. Jim concluded this session by saying we were on our way to Hartford, if anyone was going that way. One of the ladies immediately offered to drive us there, saying, didn’t we know there was going to be dangerous lightning this afternoon?

So Deb, grandmother of 13 and owner of a family carpeting company, took us right up to the door of the Super 8 motel, and wished us well. Another Nice Person of Wisconsin!

So here we are, nice and dry, while the rain pours down, the thunder booms and the lightning flashes. We have new maps to read and tomorrow’s hike to plan. If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is…