One day we walked from Chicago to Wisconsin.

On April 12, 2014 (almost one year before our official long walk start date) we walked from Logan Square in Chicago to Kenosha, WI. The total walk was 50.6 miles; more than we ever plan to do in a day on the walk, but a great adventure nonetheless. It started at 515 am, with us stepping out of the house with smoothies and sweaters (it was still a little chilly).

Our first meal of the day, a smoothie in a red plastic cup (not beer from the night before, I promise)

We headed out on the way passing a sculpture garden in Skokie, and, of course, posing with the sculptures.

Tim posing with the statue with a nice butt.

Once we hit the suburbs there were cyclists everywhere, training to race, biking for just exercise, all looking very intense while Tim strolled by in pajama pants.

Look at all these people exercising while we’re just relaxing in PJs

When we hit 55553 steps we had to pause to take a picture (it’s really hard to get exactly 55555, so.. we settled for 55553)

55553!! Almost all the same number, and OVER HALF WAY!

Right before lunch it started raining and even hailed on us (this will be good practice for the walk, we’ll hit so many different weather patterns it’s good to know we can survive hail in shorts)

About an hour after the hail stopped we took a break to check how big it was.

And then we almost hit 100,000 steps, so we paused to take another picture. This pedometer (Tim’s first pedometer!) resets at 100,000 to 0, so we had to capture the mark just before.

Basically 50 miles.

Then we crossed out of Illinois (by this time it was dusk and we still had 6 more miles to go with no sidewalks in the dark).

Bye Illinois, we’ll be back in a couple hours!

And into Kenosha County!

I’m actually happy and no longer in pain at this point, once you walk through the pain it’s really not that bad!

When we finally got on the train back to Chicago at 1020pm (we made it to Kenosha by 930ish, but the train didn’t leave til 1020) we were over 100,000 steps and exhausted. Of course they air condition the trains so much neither of us slept on the way home.

The highest step count we’ve gotten in one day so far!

Just in case you didn’t believe us, this is the map. For reference, that blue line is 50.6 miles.

The walk from Logan Square (in the south) to Kenosha, WI. It was gorgeous, tiring, crazy, and I’d do it again if I had to, but I’d rather move onto a new adventure!

And that was our walk from Chicago to Wicsonsin. We’ve now crossed two state boundaries, covering three states (and walked the distance from Wisconsin to Indiana!) Let’s aim for 12 states next time!

Cities/Towns Walkthrough

1. Chicago 5.9 miles
2. Lincolnwood 1.0
3. Skokie 2.9
4. Evanston 1.7
5. Wilmette 1.3
6. Kenilworth 0.5
7. Winnetka 2.4
8. Glencoe 2.9
9. Highland Park 4.2
10. Highwood 1.4
11. Lake Forest 3.8
12. Lake Bluff 2.5
13. North Chicago 2.7
14. Waukegan 4.1
15. Beach Park 2.3
16. Zion 2.2
17. Winthrop Harbor 1.8
18. Pleasant Prairie 3.3 (WISCONSIN!!)
19. Kenosha 3.7 (ALSO WISCONSIN!!!)