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.