Well, Here's my take on the trip. My trip started by being shut down and not able to go. I wanted to go from the beginning when I first read about it but the weekend looked to be filled up and then my supervisor was taking some vacation the Thursday-Friday of the trip. I watched jealously as the plans were being made and was developing a major case of the "no piney woods for me blues." The Wednesday before the trip our weekend plans were blown up and now I could see a little glimmer of hope and I even caught a slight sniff of that sweet pine needle smell. I asked my wife if she would miss me(she didn't really answer that part ) and she said "you're crazy, go have fun." She's a good one!

So, I packed up Thursday night late and was able to hit the road Friday evening when I got off of work. It was about a 6.5 hour drive to the trailhead. I got there a little after midnight and hiked in about 25 minutes to where the gang said they would be. I walked into the site and only saw a tent, no hammocks. I went down the trail a little further to the shelter and still no hammocks. I knew the Swedish settlement was up the hill a bit so I headed up that way thinking maybe there was more room and that's where they'd be. Strike three! Nobobdy there. I was beginning to think, this might end up being a solo trip, which is alright because any night out in the woods is a good night but I really wanted to meet and with these people. I headed back down the hill and set-up at the shelter area, hung my food and put a little note on a tree to let people know I was there if they happened to pass by. I went to sleep about 2:30 in the morning, hoping I'd find them in the morning.

About 6:30 in the morning, Mr. Green comes by, wakes me up from my short nap and let's me know that they were back at the first spot I checked. They were all back behind the tent that I saw which happened to belong to our only earth dweller Dennis. From there it was meet and greet, breakfast around the fire, checking out people's rigs and so on. After a while we packed up and headed out on the trail a few at a time. I had the privilege of hiking for most of the day with Fishin' Finn. We kept expecting everyone to catch up as we weren't breaking any speed records but they never did. As Shug said in the video, "they were lollygagging."

Even though I didn't get to hike with everyone else, it was a great day. Dutch, Finn, Sarahgirl and I went all over Northern Wisconsin and finally found some real Wisconsin "Cheesehead" pizza. Dutch didn't think it was real pizza as it was cut in squares not like a pie. It was a good time as well. The last night's fire was fun, just sharing stories of hiking, family, friends and checking out gear. I enjoyed every bit of it and got quite a bit more sleep that night as Finn, Sarah and I set up down close to Lake Three. Heard a couple of bears, saw a lot of bear crap, saw some pretty lakes and streams and locked that smell of the woods in my nostrils and hung out with some great people for a short time. It was great, I only wish I could have been there for the whole thing.

Thanks to all of you who were there, I look forward to the next one!

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