Tent Season Has Finally Begun

Since April began the temps have been steadily climbing above freezing, and today was so beautiful that I packed up the car with my camping gear to do a run-through with my new tent at Kettle Moraine.

The Ottawa Lake campground is open but not staffed.  I self-registered and headed to my favorite site, close to the showers but secluded on the outer edge with lots of trees.  When I stopped at the shower house I found out the ranger's office wasn't the only thing closed!  Good thing I'm staying only one night.

I go the tent up with little trouble but then realized I couldn't reach to get the rain fly attached!  Luckily there was a handy stump I could climb up on and make a toss from there.  The darn thing ended up being inside out, but I wasn't attempting it again so finished attaching it as it was.  No rain in the forecast, I just wanted to trap some heat.

Site 333 is actually a little on the small side for a Wisconsin State Park.  Camping is good in our state, but if you're from out of state be prepared for the sticker you'll have to buy.  Stay more than a few days and make those dollars work for you!

As soon as I was set up I zipped across the road to Scuppernong Trails.  A few cars were in the lot, but it was pretty quiet.  When I stopped here a few weeks ago on a warm and sunny day the trail was covered in thick ice still, but today all is melted and the sandy trail was nice to walk on.

I bought some gel sesamoid pads from Amazon and they work so well that I've ditched the boot.  The boot was throwing everything else out of alignment, causing the bottom of my right foot to be sore from added weight and pressure, not to mention making my left hip feel strained.  The pad works so well that I went for a 2 mile run outside on gravel yesterday.  Still wanting to ease back into things I chose the 2.3 mile loop today.  The pad takes the pressure off the sesamoid but adds a little extra pressure on the metatarsals which gets uncomfortable after awhile.

The pad is sticky all by itself, and you just wash it and let it air dry at the end of use.  It has the added benefit of filling in some of that high arch gap that I have on the left foot.  I didn't know it came in two different thicknesses and the one I purchased happens to be the thicker one.  I'm going to see if I can find the other one for when the inflammation is under control.

I started trying to write this post at the Oconomowoc Public Library but their wifi was so slow I couldn't load a picture at all.  While I was waiting for it to respond I felt something crawling on my wrist and flicked a tick off.  Yuck!  That little bugger must have been crawling around my shirt for more than an hour before he found the skin highway.  I headed over to Bruegger's Bagel Bakery but their wifi is slow as well, it took 6 minutes per picture to load!  So, that's all the photos for today, the rest will just have to wait until I get home tomorrow.  The bagels?  Not that great.

It might be beautiful this afternoon, but tonight's low is forecasted for 41F.  Brrr!  I brought lots to bundle up in, hopefully I'll make it through.  I wanted to bring my cozy tent cot to trap my body heat better, but I needed to walk through this tent set-up to see if I wanted to take this along on our trip to Kentucky and Tennessee next week.  It was a little awkward to set up alone so I might just bring my smaller tent from Walmart which has the added benefit of taking up next to no room in the car and weighing next to nothing.  So many choices now!  We leave in a week and I can't wait to see the country turn green and burst into bloom as me and my mom make our way south!