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The first (only?) snow of the trail! Today was 33º but with windchill it felt like 11º, or so the weather reported. It felt SO cold without my gloves or face mask, but bundled up I was warm and cozy. Still, I only carved 10 miles of the remaining ~300 before leaving the trail early (before sunset) once I reached Milton. I stopped at a pub and treated myself to cheese curds and a brew from New Glarus. The rest of the week will be much warmer until eventually the temperature returns to the high 50s/low 60s. The weather may just hold…

I joked today that I wanted to give up. I dreaded going into the cold and spending another day with sore feet that required a massage every mile to continue moving forward. Perhaps it was the cold, but my feet hurt much less today and I even managed to jog some.

I don’t have many days left on the trail. The end is so close but yesterday I finally accepted that I wasn’t going to finish before Eric needs to return to Seattle. He’ll fly home with Vivi this Saturday and my brother will take over shuttling me the rest of the trail. He lives in Sheboygan so is well-positioned to host base camp as I close in on the eastern terminus. Until then, I will keep moving forward with the hopes that I make it far enough that Eric has a chance to glimpse the beauty of Door County, or at the very least Lake Michigan.