Walking through the small towns in Wisconsin gave me insight into the hopes and dreams of middle-America, their successes and failures.  Small town Wisconsin is a near carbon copy of small town Michigan.  An older Main Street will have a bakery, a real estate company, a Marshall arts academy, a diner and at least one pizza joint.  A Dollar General will have sprung up by now, it might even be across the street from a shuttered up grocery store.  If the town is big enough, there will be a new side of town that’s filled with box stores and other big names.   

I saw these small towns and thought about all the people, their hopes and their dreams.  Is their best life one that struggles to get by or are they living in the larger than life houses on the edge of town?  Do they know their hopes and dreams are carbon copies of so many others?  We are all the same, and yet, so very different.

What were the people thinking as they drove by the road walking hiker on their weekday morning commutes to work?  Some would smile and wave while others would gawk so heavily at us that the vehicle would begin to swerve in our direction.  Some people were probably envious while others might have assumed we were milking COVID unemployment and are a burden to society. 

I do care what people think. I try not to let it stop me from doing what I want to do, but that is not always as easy as it sounds.  Traveling the world on foot with only a backpack to rely on exposes you to every kind of person in the world.  Ignoring what people are thinking about you and your journey would be like never using sunscreen or bug spray; you’re ok until you’re not.