8/9 – so now we have gone as far north as we can go on the Ice Age Trail, approximately 500 miles. The Trail goes on for another 500 miles, of course, but Westfield is the last place that we can catch a bus back to Portage, to catch a train to Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport, where we can then fly to Frankfurt and on to Lisbon, Portugal for the next leg of our adventure. So here we stop.

When we purchased our plane tickets a month ago, we really didn’t know how far we’d get, or what we could expect for ground transportation. We now have a week before we fly, and we will spend it reprovisioning, shipping our mosquito suits and tent back home, buying a new phone from T-Mobile with a better deal for overseas use, and swimming in the pool at our hotel.

So what did we do on our last hiking day? We walked around town, of course! They are not kidding about the Pioneer theme here:

Of course we found a lovely trail through town:

Jim and I talked about our summer in Wisconsin. I regretted that we didn’t get far enough north to see any beavers. Luckily, there was a sign in town that solved that issue:
We also realized that we’d gone all summer without eating corn on the cob, although we saw plenty of corn growing around us. That was easily remedied too, as Jim boiled several ears in our coffee pot, and we sat out on a picnic table devouring them with salt and butter purloined from the continental breakfast at the hotel. Jim may post an exciting video on this subject.

So, regrets have we none. Time to catch a bus!