Well, we planned a long hike today (11 mi) so we could end in the town of Rochester, where parking seemed readily available, just not sure how our feet would hold up. Started off at the friendly farmer’s house from last weekend with his cute little girls to greet us from the porch all bundled up in blankets- what a joy! After some hellos we started out and quickly realized that it was colder than we expected, but luckily the wind was at our back, which we thought would save us…guess again. We were mostly in the middle of fields, so there was no protection from the wind, which although light, made it feel much colder (real feel 180C- YIPPI !!!). By about the middle of the hike both Wendy and my fingertips were feeling frozen, so we each borrowed April’s mittens for short intervals to warm them up- another trail lesson I guess to double glove next time. First time this has happened, and we all agreed that this was probably the coldest day we had ever hiked- of course it was a long hike to boot to extend the suffering. So that was the theme of the day, trying to stay warm and out of the wind. The cold WAS helpful when we hiked through Findlay State park, however, as a lot of it was low lying and very wet, and would be be total mudder except that now it was frozen 🙂 ! It was also nice to be back in the woods, and the park was a beehive of activity with many people there to cut/collect fallen trees for free wood. Lots of interesting farms along the way, although one owner was suspicious of us taking pictures…if only he knew how harmless we are! At the end we were dragging, no lie, and as we came to a railroad crossing we were saying to ourselves that all we needed now was for a train to come and hold us up when we were so close to finishing… and of COURSE a train came just about as we reached the tracks! Luckily it was a short one and we were not delayed from getting to the car and sitting down. When we went back to the friendly farmer to collect our other car he came out again and wished us well- gonna miss them for sure.
