Day 53, 15.3 miles

We start the day walking through pretty grasslands with wild flowers. Land management is trying to restore these areas back to prairie lands, unfortunately there are no Buffalo roaming around but there are some rolling hills with views and with the breeze it’s quite lovely.

I have some allergies and am low on energy but otherwise we’re having a great day.

The board walk sections are in great shape and damsel flies are fluttering around. The toad population is happy too and we see a giant green one.

There are still big trees lining the grasslands and I joke that this trail could also be the big tree and benches trail because, yes, there is another bench!

We’re entertained by a section that has signs saying ‘Don’t shoot in this direction, houses behind this sign’. The funny thing is the directional arrow is pointing straight up and I’m sure there are no houses in the sky.

The best thing about today, and what we’ve been looking forward to all day, is that we’re meeting up with the three ladies I had met just before Cross Plains. They were biking the road section of the trail and had offered me a chair to sit on while I was taking a break on the side of the road.  And told me to contact when I’d get closer to Delafield. So I did! They live closeby and one of them, Joan is picking us up at the trailhead at 4pm. She drives us to Charlotte and Mary’s house where we’ll stay for the night. We’re received as celebraties and have dinner with 5 women and one man asking us questions about thru hiking this trail and others. The food was amazing and we had our first taste of frozen custard. Yum!