Day 193: Connecting Route, Langlade County
Day 193: Thursday, June 16th, 2022
Total Miles hiked for the day: 5.8; Net Miles 0.0
Location: Part of the Connecting Route south of the Kettlebowl Segment, from where Kettlebowl used to end on Oak Road to the intersection of Polar Road and Stubby Lane
5.8 Miles of trail covered
Last year (jeez - was this really only last year we did this to ourselves? What were we thinking?) we came out here to Langlade county and traveled this connecting route on bicycle, covering the whole 24.7 miles over the course of two days. We won't be doing it again in only two days, but we're hoping for three.
Langlade County, for those who plan to hike there, is not overly friendly towards people who have to park their cars. It is illegal, in Langlade County, to park your car along the side of Town or County Roads unless authorized by the governing body. Violators will be ticketed and towed.
That means if you plan on hiking through Langlade County you have to park at designated parking areas or risk the long arm of the law.
What a pain in the tailgate.
Not wanting to hike miles and miles and miles in one direction, or have one person hiking at a time while the other played Trail Angel, we opted for stealth hiking. Very short, very fast sections, typically a mile or less. Keep it moving - they are less likely to get a call or say anything, and even if they happened by, one of us was literally always within sight of the car. I don't know if that would have helped us avoid a fine, but at least they would have trouble towing our vehicle, in theory.
So once again, after work on a Thursday night, we came flying out to one of the nearby pieces of roadway that we still needed to walk and started working our way from the Town of Polar to the Kettlebowl Segment. This ziggety-ziggety path was about five miles total, made just a bit shorter because we had already hiked the road extension that went from the old trailhead to the new trailhead.
Theresa dropped me off at 6:00 pm and we started crisscrossing our way down the road, as fast as we could manage, starting at Stubby Lane
Don't bother looking for Stubby Lane on the current recommended connecting route. The suggested route no longer goes that far south, instead opting to turn on Gruenberg Road and then travel west all the way to Orchard Road before heading south. I'm guessing that's because 'they' are planning to build a new Segment out in the Moraine Wash Preserve, but I don't know that to be true. If and when they do you can bet I'll be out there.
There is decent parking in the town of Polar. That was our first hop. Because we were taking such short stints, I was frequently greeted with this smile.
I posted some of my 'Random Road Hiking thoughts' a few days ago and it was a popular post, so tonight while I was hiking, I worked on and posted a new set.
Random Thought #1. Why are pies always round? I mean - cakes are either round or square, but pies? Whoever heard of a square pie? Theresa says she's going to make one. Just because.
Random Thought #2. Why do the words 'Flammable' and 'Inflammable' mean the same thing? This was not a completely original thought, but it plagues me.
There have been some recent blow-downs, very visible on the side of the road. Given a few years these will be highly flammable, or highly inflammable. See? It makes no sense that those mean the same thing.
Random Thought #3. Do birds speak a thousand different languages or just one? Walking down the road I'm hearing all kinds of birds with their evening chatter. Do they understand each other? Or is it like people? People speak over 7000 languages, and while some are similar, most often all we hear in other languages is a bunch of meaningless sounds. I wonder if birds know what each other are saying.
Random Thought #4. Once there's a hole in the roof it's all over. This thought came from thinking about all the abandoned buildings we have seen as we walked. Many are terribly run down and derelict, but while the roof is intact, there is still hope. But once there's a hole in the roof that lets the water in... it's all over.
This is yet one more place where you're not allowed to park. Like pretty much everywhere in Langlade County.
Random Thought #5. If I change the pace I'm walking I get different songs playing in my head. Try it yourself. Walk at different paces and think about music. If you're walking slowly you'll start hearing 'Crazy' by Patsy Cline. Walk faster and you'll start hearing 'These Boots are Made for Walking' by Nancy Sinatra. Walk really fast and you'll start hearing 'On the Road Again' by Willie Nelson.
This Blue Racer snake didn't walk fast enough.
Random Thought #6. I once thought it would be interesting to see the inside of a turtle. I was wrong.
With all the egg-laying turtles on the road it is inevitable that some of them will be hit by cars. Turtles, it turns out, are not interesting at all when they are turned inside-out.
Random Thought #7. If I had picked up every box wrench and socket I've found I'd have a full set to give someone for Christmas. Seriously. What is it about sockets? Why are they the tool I keep finding laying around? All sizes. True story - there was one time I was out walking along carrying my loppers while I hiked (before I got my folding saw), and the nut came loose. Hand-tightening was too hard, and it wouldn't stay closed, making it useless. I was three miles from anywhere in either direction, and I looked down and saw, in the mud, the exact size socket I needed to fix the tool. 11/16ths. I tightened the nut and it worked for the rest of the trip.
Random Thought #8. Accomplishing short term goals can be exciting. Like getting to that spot where the telephone poles crossed to the other side of the road. As you're walking you keep thinking - how many steps to that pole? Or the next one? Sometimes you see a pole in the distance and say to yourself, I want to get there within the next ten minutes. Short-distance goals make the miles go by.
Random Thought #9. Someone had to clear every single tree stump from the fields that are now farmed. Mile after mile, farm field after farm field. All free from tree stumps. Someone in the distant past had to remove them from the land, one stump at a time, by shovel, ox, and dynamite. Makes all this silly road walking seem pretty easy in comparison, doesn't it?
These thoughts carried me to the intersection of Oak Road and Sherry Road. The signage on the road is quite clear, indicating that Oak Road ends, and Sherry Road is the one that extends north and east. Yet on the Atlas and the IAT Hiker's Resource Map, and even on Google Maps, the road east of this sign is labeled as 'Oak Rd.'
Random Thought #10. An average step is about 30 inches. That means it takes over 2.1 million steps to go 1000 miles. I tried to verify that empirically but I lost count.
Not all thoughts are serious ones. Of course I wasn't counting to two million, but I did verify that a nice, comfortable pace gives me 5 feet for every two steps, 5000 feet in 2000 steps, nearly a mile. 1000 miles is 2,000,000 steps, give or take.
Near the end of our walk, where Sherry Road bends to the south, there is a property on the south side of the road belonging to Terry Creekmore. It's a little haphazard, but Terry makes a great show of being a friend to the trail.
At roadside there is a hiking stick give-away post, where Terry offers free sticks to anyone who needs one.
There is a copy of a news article on display.
And other interesting artifacts.
And before I left, Terry himself came out to greet us and talk to us about his home, his life, and his love of the trail. He wanted to show us some special places nearby but we told him we had just a bit more walking to do. He said that was just fine - he would meet us on down the trail.
So we walked as far as this sign, which ended our hiking for the day, but not our time with Terry.
Though dark was rapidly approaching, Terry took us a little bit down the road and past the parking area before pulling over at a marker he had tied to some trees. That led down an almost-trail that had a rope for a guideline and a bunch of branches blocking the way. The mosquitoes were ferocious, being abundant in the woods where they were totally absent on the road.
The path led to an ancient graveyard being tended only by Terry, the burial site of some of the early residents of Langlade County. Sadly, many of the stones have been stolen, the oldest ones that identify these as graves going all the way back to the Civil War era. In the fading light, I took a few photos.
Here lies Isaac Thornberry.
I don't know who else lies in that tiny plot of land. The rest of the stones are gone.
Terry wasn't done showing me stuff. As one last stop, he took me to a secret spot where there exists a small, underground bunker. Terry told me that he dreams of refurbishing it and making it like the famous (and now ruinous) Hillbilly Hilton.
At 8:50 pm I said good-bye to Terry in the fading light.
The tally:
- One new Snail
- Completed map 36
- Converted 5.8 miles of biking to the 'hiked' category
- 140.9 miles to go
Running Total: 1213.3 miles of trail covered (996.1 hiked), 289.4 miles 'extra' hiking/biking. End of Day 193.
No comments:
Post a Comment