MANITOWOC â?? Returning home last month to the town of Newton after a summer of exploration, 24-year-old Brian Backhaus looked much like the scrawny junior high school kid he’d been more than a decade ago.
Except, that is, for the wiry beard that had sprouted from his chin.
“On the East Coast I was eating rice and oatmeal, but then I couldn’t find gas containers for my stove,” said Backhaus, a third-year forestry student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Once I got out west, I started eating bread and dry cereal and lunch meat.”