Oceana, Mason, Newaygo Counties and another 5 miles in Lenawee

I had the pleasure of going up to Oceana County last weekend to the cottage of one of my old high school friends, Kathy, who I haven't had much contact with in the last I don't want to admit how many years. She is related to one of my sister's best friends so that's how we got in contact again. She read about how I'm walking all the counties in Michigan and it just so happened that Oceana was the next one up the Michigan side coast so away we went.

Her cottage is only 1/4 mile away from beautiful Lake Michigan so we got up bright and early on Saturday morning and hiked around her neighborhood. Right inland from the big lake is little Stony Lake. So there's a whole little community around both lakes. The roads wind over and around dunes so it was a pretty good walk and we ended up walking along the beach and back to the cottage. We ate Friday and Saturday night at a little restaurant called the Stony Lake Tavern and their specialty is deep fried asparagus that is to die for.

Here is the road near Kathy's cottage. Very peaceful and beautiful.

View of the beach from the top of the dunes.

After catching our breaths and regrouping we headed up the coast the back way. There were little produce markets along the way. I could do some serious shopping out there! Then we stopped at the wonderful Little Sable Lighthouse. It is situated near Silver Lake and we went up to the top and it was awesome!!!! It's built of red brick and is one of the most beautiful lighthouses I've seen. In Michigan there is a program where people can stay at the lighthouses for a week for a small fee. They volunteer to man the doors and do other work around the lighthouse. We went to the top along with lots of other visitors coming and going. The view was beautiful.

Little Sable Lighthouse

In Mason County we figured we'd just walk around the harbor and downtown in beautiful Ludington. This is where the ferry to Manitowoc, Wisconsin is located. There are beautiful sculptures in the park along the walkway. There is a large marina and a pretty cool downtown.

Kathy took a picture of me with all these bronze children. Then a nice young lady travelling around in a wheelchair offered to take a picture of both of us in all our glory.

When we got done walking around the harbor and downtown we still had about a mile to go so we walked back out partway to the harbor light. There were people fishing along the pier. It was way cool and the lake looked beautiful.

We had decided that we would do one more county since we had a long ride home ahead of us and we still hadn't had a chance to hang out at the beach. So we got up really early and started driving over 20 towards Newaygo County. I can't walk without eating first, I don't know how people walk or work out on an empty stomach. We stopped at a really good restaurant in Hesperia called Daniels for breakfast.

Then we headed for the Loda Lake Wildflower Sanctuary. The deal is you are supposed to stop and get a brochure at the entrance that correspond with numbered stations that give you info on the different plants. We totally missed that and just walked around in amazement at how beautiful and green it was.

Beautiful pond with noisy bullfrogs.

I took this picture of a tree with numerous woodpecker holes in honor of my friend Kathy who hates woodpeckers!!!

A pretty little stream.

Then we went over to the Hardy Dam which is the third largest earthen dam in the world. Many people use it for recreation and it is one of 3 dams on the Muskegon River. There is a trail that goes down past the spillway and then climbs along the river.

We got done with the 5 miles and then I got some delicious Grand Traverse Cherry Fudge ice cream at the party store down the road. We headed back to the cottage, went to the lake for about an hour and a half and then headed back home. I had left my car at my son's house and got to see my grandbaby and read her Goodnight Moon before she went to bed which was actually the high point in my very eventful weekend. There's no place like home!!!

Today I went over to walk with my niece in Lenawee County on the Kiwanis Trail that runs between Tecumseh and Adrian. We walked 5 miles but I've got to say that it smelled like horse poopy for quite a ways. And there were lots of little nasty flies, the triangle ones. But it was fun. Now I'm home hanging out and trying to get up the energy to do some weeding in my gardens.

Montmorency and Otsego Counties

This is craziness. I'm finally getting to telling about what happened last Tuesday. Last time I was up at my niece's place with my sister. Tuesday morning we woke up, ate our bagels and headed up to Clear Lake State Park. I have this book called Hiking Michigan and this park looked good. Clear Lake is a spring fed lake and you really can see to the bottom.

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The trail was pretty hard to follow. It got a lot narrower after this. The ferns were totally covering it and it was just a single track. Once again, I had a map but the signs weren't very good and I ended up losing the trail. But I knew what direction the park was at so I found my way back to the road and was heading into the park when it started thundering. My sister was sitting in the park reading a book and we had the foresight to check that our phones worked before I left. Unfortunately, most of the park doesn't have cell service. So I called her and asked her to pick me up but I didn't realize the road doesn't go all the way around.

Long story short, we were both freaking out because I felt bad that I told her wrong and she was worried that I was going to get soaked by the approaching storm. The girl at the front told her how to find me and I had decided to stay in one spot by the back entrance and I was very happy when I saw her car approaching. I got in the car and then it started pouring. I was .6 short of 5 miles.

We decided that pie would make us feel better and I steered her to a great restaurant that Wes and I love in Johannesburg. It's called the Old Depot Restaurant and it is really delicious and cute and they have great pie!!! We relaxed for a while, had dessert and then headed for Gaylord.

Gaylord is like most Up North Michigan towns and used to be a lumber town. There was a huge demand for lumber after the 1871 Chicago fire. One thing you notice when in Gaylord is the Alpine theme. It was introduced in the 60's to spur the tourist industry. Normally I find artificially themed towns kind of dumb but Gaylord is okay.

I decided that I would just walk around the town since I hadn't been able to find any hiking trails I wanted to try in Otsego County. I started walking down South Court Street. Now I knew there was a park that had elk in it somewhere in Gaylord but hadn't been able to find it in the car but I happened to walk to it going down Court Street.

Here are the elk. Teeny tiny in the picture.

So then I saw a sign for Alpine Park and it had some awesome trails. Unfortunately it started pouring again and I was soon soaked. I headed back to the car and still had about a mile to go so I walked down to the middle school. There were neat looking houses on the way. I made it back to the car with soaking wet feet and blisters. Grrr!!! But I was finally done with Otsego County.

Next morning I finished up Montmorency County in the road behind my niece's house in the pouring rain again. And again I was thinking I'd do Genesee County on the way home but didn't. I don't know what the deal is. I've decided that I'll do Genesee when I go up to finish the counties in the Thumb.

Alpena and Presque Isle Counties

Alpena County

We woke up on Monday morning to a peanut butter and bagel breakfast. We headed out to Alpena. The ride over was interesting an abundance of trees. That's what "up north" is all about!

We found the BiPath in Alpena which winds along the Alpena Wildlife Refuge. We had downloaded a new book for Connie's Kindle so she was happy to sit in the car and read while I hightailed off. I was pretty impressed with the path and with the parks that were adjacent to it. I appreciate communities that care about the wildlife and realize what a boost it is to the liveability of a city to have places where people can get out and enjoy nature.

This is a view from the Bipath.

This snapping turtle and I had a little conversation. I told him/her I'd just take a quick picture and please don't bite me. Then I walked a few more steps and found a turtle nest with broken eggs next to it. I wish I could have seen the babies.

I got back to the car and still had about a half mile to go and Connie finished up that walk with me. I enjoyed Alpena more than I thought I would. We didn't go over to Thunder Bay since we were headed up to Presque Isle which is on Lake Huron so we'd be seeing the lake then.

Presque Isle County

We went over to 23 and headed north. Missed the turn to Presque Isle. The name in French means "almost an island". Grand Lake is west of Presque Isle and it is basically a long spit of land with two connectors to the mainland. We drove north to the other connector. Grand Lake is very beautiful to the east.

There is not much of a downtown which we found out as we were looking for a restaurant. We ended up getting yummy sandwiches at the deli across from the harbor and eating outside at the picnic table.

If you like lighthouses this is a great place to visit. The first Presque Isle lighthouse was built in 1840 but it deteriorated quickly and it was too short to be much help to sailors coming in to the harbor so it was replaced with a new lighthouse. I walked up to the top of the new lighthouse which is 113 feet high. I also just read that both of the lighthouses are haunted which I'm glad I didn't know when I was up there on top all by myself. It was easy going up except for running out of breath a couple of times but the walk down was not fun. The steps were see through wrought iron and I had a death grip on the railing. This lighthouse has a great gift shop and I spent lots of money on teeshirts and a pink hat.

View from the top of the New Presque Isle lighthouse.

Once we ate it was time for me to get to work and get walking. Connie parked at the old lighthouse which is through the trees from the harbor and I set off. There is a nice walk along the breakwall which I went up and down a couple times since it was so cool and I walked quite a way down the road. I then headed back through the trees and eventually got my 5 miles done. Another one bites the dust!!

View of the Old Presque Isle lighthouse from the end of the breakwall.

Up close view of the Old Lighthouse. Isn't it adorable?

Practice walk and Oscoda County

Practice Walk: June 18

The weekend began last Saturday with Hannah and me doing a 15 mile practice walk in Ann Arbor. These walks are run by 3 day volunteers. Most of them have walked numerous times before and give up their time to help us train. It is kind of weird to me to walk with a bunch of people since I'm a "do your own thing" kind of person but that is definitely something I have to get over since I'll be walking with lots and lots of people in August. Just think, if you're walking in a big pack of people and you drop your water bottle and stop to pick it up. It would be much worse than a 20 car pile up. So there are "rules of the sidewalk" that people who haven't done the practice walks don't know. I was very glad when the 15 miles were over with!!!

Oscoda County: June 19

My niece has a house up in Montmorency County (which is way up north). Her mom, who is my sister Connie and I left on Father's Day morning to spend a few days up

there and get some more counties under my belt. The logical thing to do was to

get a county done on the way up so we stopped in Mio.

Mio is a masculine kind of place with lots of hunting, fishing, canoeing going on.

I also am pretty familiar with it since my parents and four older siblings lived there back around 1940. My dad got an offer of a job working as a mechanic at a car dealer so they all went up there but that didn't last long and they ended up moving back to Monroe.

We started off walking on a trail back in the woods south of town. It was out of the way and kind of creepy. Connie and I just did about a half mile there and headed back to town.

We took a walk down memory lane but it wasn't a long walk since downtown Mio isn't big. Here is the school my sister went to when she was a little whippersnapper.

I started up and down the streets and met her at the supermarket parking lot. I then went to a little park next to the Au Sable River and got the rest of my 5 miles in.

Isabella County

Here it is two days later and I'm finally going to tell you about what happened on Tuesday in Mount Pleasant.

I woke up early at the motel and ate a quick breakfast. I decided that I would walk along Pickard Street which is the street adjacent to Soaring Eagle. We stayed at the Best Western (really nice but the beds are too high. I felt like the Princess and the Pea princess). So I started walking west and was not too hopeful about it being a nice walk. I soon changed my mind because every so often, along this mundane commercial strip, the city had put benches with beautiful landscaping around them. And the underpass under 127 has been planted terrace style with hostas and other perennials. So it made that part of the walk pleasant.

I realized shortly after I started walking that I forgot my camera so again I don't have pictures. Darn!

I cut into the side streets after getting past Mission Street and the streets were nice and shady. The closer I got to Main Street the bigger and more impressive the houses got. There were lots of early 20th century houses. A couple of "OH WOW" houses grabbed my attention. I made it to Main Street and found Island Park and still had about a quarter of a mile to do before I headed back so headed into the park and ended up walking around there more that I meant to. There were old people playing bocce ball. It was a very pretty park and looked like it had every kind of outdoor activity available.

Heading back to the motel, I again walked through the side streets as far as possible then made it to the main drag again by Meijer and finally made it back.

My legs were hurting and I was already exhausted so I decided that I needed some rest and we thought we'd start driving home and if I felt like it I would walk in Genesee County since I still have to do that one. We ended up driving right through it and just coming home. Where I walked in and planted my butt for quite a while and did mindless things like catching up on Chelsea Lately and Judge Judy.

I have to walk 5 miles today and then 15 miles on Saturday and 11 miles on Sunday. Next week I'll be going up to my niece's place in Montmorency County with my sister Connie. I'm excited!!!!

Bay and Midland Counties

I'm having trouble getting my pictures to load so I'm just going to write about the yesterday and maybe figure something out for pictures later.

First of all I have to talk about my training walk in Ann Arbor on Sunday that the 3 day sponsored. Hannah (my former coworker and my cowalker) and I met 20 others across from Angelo's and started hightailing it up and down trails I never knew were there all the while schooling us on what to expect during the official walk in August. Neither one of us had done this before and I'm so glad we did. We walked up along the Huron River then worked our way down to Main Street and up a hill on Summit. Out to Hunt Park and along Sunset and through the neighborhoods to Westgate. Ann Arbor is so cool, I love the gardens along the street. It really is a leafy city. We went back to town along Liberty and back to the starting point. We were supposed to walk 10 miles but ended up walking 11.5. So that was Sunday.

Then yesterday my sister, Angie, and I started out from my house at 8:00 and headed up to Bay City State Park which is north of the city. My goal was to was to walk the 4.9 mile Tobico Marsh loop which is around the marsh which is inland from the Saginaw Bay. It's a beautiful park and a very important stop for migrating birds. I'm sure if I knew what I was looking for I would have seen really cool birds. As it was I saw a bullfrog and herons. Swans and lots of chipmunks.

I said our goal was to walk around the loop and it seems crazy but we missed a turn so didn't get to do the whole loop because frankly I didn't want to wear myself out because I had another county to walk. We got the whole 5 miles just not around the loop. I would love to go back again next spring because it really is an awesome park. There is also a beach right on the Bay.

Then we headed to Midland and we were going to walk at Dow Gardens but first the important stuff....we had to eat. We finally found downtown after some wandering around the city for awhile. This is the home of Dow Chemical and there are numerous fancy houses and a nice downtown. I wish I had time to explore these places I'm going. (I didn't even go to downtown Bay City although I've been there before and I know it's a beautiful place.)

Anyhow, we ate at a bistro downtown called Molly's and it was pretty yummy. Then we went to Dow Gardens and I have to tell you that if you've never been you need to go. Here is the link:

http://www.dowgardens.org/ and here is the one picture that I managed to upload.

From the park you can see the back of the Frank Lloyd Wright house that was built for Alden B. Dow. The park is magnificent with towering trees and gazillions of perennials. There is an exhibit of gorgeous glass sculptures throughout the gardens. Also fancy bridges, a kids play area, herb gardens, butterfly gardens. In short it was right up my sister's and my alley. We meandered happily through the park for 3 miles then Angie took a seat and I power walked around again for my last two miles. At this point I was pretty wore out which I have to learn to get over and suck it up since I'll be walking a lot more than that two months from today. Oh boy!!

Then we figured out how to get to Mount Pleasant which in retrospect seemed like it should have been easy but with Lucy and Ethel nothing is easy. We are staying near Soaring Eagle and came here, showered, ate at Uncle Bob Evans and then gambled a little for about an hour. I really whooped it up and put a $10 in the penny machine and played with it and got my $10 back an hour later. I HATE gambling so I was very happy that I hadn't wasted anything but my time!!!

So that's it. We're going to get Isabella and Clare done today hopefully.

Computerwise this has been the most aggravating week! Our internet is down at home. We have Hughesnet because we live way out in the boondocks where men are men and women get to sit at home and be bored because there is no internet! Grrr! So I'm sitting at Panera trying to get the second half of my blog for last weekend done. It's only Thursday....

Okay so the last time I was at Big Rapids and on Sunday morning I got up and checked out and this is what I saw in the parking lot. I was very impressed by the off road muddiness of this Jeep. It looks like our cars in March...being in the boondocks that's what our cars look like about 9 months out of the year.
I headed up 131 to Reed City which is another little city on a former rail line. They have done a beautiful job of fixing up their old depot. It looks like it's used as a community center and the restrooms were fancy which was really refreshing. Reed City is where the White Pine Trail and the Pere Marquette Trail intersect so I walked on both. It was early in the morning so it was pleasantly cool.

There is a General Mills factory in the middle of town and it said Yoplait on it so I was excited! Yay Yoplait!!!


Here is a view of the depot.

There is a covered bridge on the White Pine Trail. Very pretty!!

Then I headed up to Cadillac which is in Wexford County. I am familiar with this county because a branch of Wes' father's family is from there. His great great grandfather was a doctor in Manton which is up the road from Cadillac. I decided to leisurely walk in Cadillac and not have a repeat of the previous day. So I started at a local cafe and had a delicious sandwich and walked around downtown then I headed for Lake Cadillac which is right downtown and they have a really nice walkway.

The dock on Lake Cadillac.

There is a tributary walk along Clam River. Very shady and scenic!

More on Clam River Greenway.

Another dock.


I finally got the 5 miles done in Cadillac then headed back down to Edmore in Montcalm County to finish up the 2nd half of that walk that I wimped out on the day before. Then I came home.

I'm hurrying because Panera is getting crowded and I don't want to hog the table.

Gratiot, Mecosta and part of Montcalm County

I woke up bright and early on Saturday morning to a hazy, hot and humid day. I had a busy day planned and took off for Portland which is just west of Lansing. They had extensive trails and an interesting city. It's called the city of two rivers because they have the Grand River and the Looking Glass River and really cool old metal bridges. I got there by 9AM and found the trail which ran along the river. There were beautiful purple and white flowers that smelled divine.

There is a whole system of trails around the city and the part I walked on was the Bogue Flat Trail. I did the walk pretty quickly although it was already getting hot but I wanted to get to the next county quickly because my goal was to do 3 counties on Saturday. I drove around the town for a quick look/see and there were lots of historic, cool buildings.

The post office.

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I was excited about a rail trail called the White Pine Trail which runs from Grand Rapids to Cadillac. I figured that using that trail I could get 4 counties done really easily. So I headed up 131 to Montcalm County where a little burg called Howard City was right on the trail. There was major construction downtown and I had trouble finding the trail. It's usually easy because if it's a rail to trail the railroads would have gone through downtown. I think my mind was addled from all the driving and I went back to the Subway by the expressway and ate and then hit the trail. It was pretty evident pretty quickly that it was too hot for me to be walking especially by myself especially with no sunscreen or hat. Sunscreen doesn't work for me because I sweat so much it drips into my eye and I don't want to look like Lebron and wear a sweatband lol. So I decided after 2.5 miles that I'd had enough. I had a motel room booked at Big Rapids so headed up there and took a nice refreshing shower and figured I'd walk in the evening when it cooled off a little.

Birch trees in Howard City.

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I really liked Big Rapids which is the county seat of Mecosta County. The only thing I really knew about it is that it's where Ferris State is and people that I've known who have gone there like to party. I think school is out so it was pretty quiet when I was there except for the rafters down on the river where there really are rapids. Duh! Who knew? I decided to just walk around town instead of doing the rail trail and it was very pretty with lots of historical houses. These towns up north have so many beautiful Victorian style houses I just want to take pictures of them all.

This is the entrance to a stairway that takes you down to the riverside.

On the trail along the river you go under an overpass and this is the graffiti art that is on the wall.Very cool!!

Here is a scary looking tree guarding the little creek that is heading to the river.

Some of those rapids.

A cool fence around a really cool old house that I didn't take a picture of. You couldn't really see the house because there were overgrown bushes in front of it. Hidden curb appeal!

More pretty flowers by a river.

This used to be the county jail. See it says "jail" on the building.

I think this is the post office.

Oh my Lord! I have been having issues figuring out this net book. I love it thanks Emily!! But I'm not very technically blessed and I better leave well enough alone and get this posted. Next on the agenda is Sunday when I went to Reed City, Cadillac and finished my 5 miles in Montcalm County with a 2.5 mile walk on the White Pine Trail.