Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Genesee, Huron and Sanilac


Saturday July 9:

I woke up at 5:3o and had to get everything together including getting our dog up to Em's so she could watch her until today. I was heading up to meet Wes hopefully in Port Sanilac in the Thumb (of Michigan).

The first thing I had to do was walk in Genesee County. I had been avoiding it because I really wanted to walk on the Flint River Trail but I was worried about Flint's violent reputation and wasn't sure I wanted to risk it. Then I started thinking about it and I don't think it's really fair to paint the whole city with that violent brush. That's what people around the country do to Michigan and that makes me mad so.....I also have a connection since my father in law grew up there and he was a very special guy so I could kind of feel him walking beside me. Well, not literally but you know.

The part of the trail that I walked on started up by McLaren Hospital and went through a residential area. Then it headed south on Chevrolet past empty lots which I believe used to be huge factories. It's just so damn sad to think of all the lives that revolved around those factories. The parents that worked their butts of 7 days a week to try to improve the quality of their family's lives. Despite what some people seem to think about union workers the truth is what they did was hard work. Now they are tearing down the factories in Flint.

The trail followed the Flint River into downtown Flint past the site of the Flint Road Cart Company which was a carriage company founded by William C Durant. Look him up if you're interested in how General Motors, it's too complicated for me to attempt.

I felt pretty comfortable and safe in downtown Flint and wandered around for a while. They have arches over Saginaw Street (which is the main street through town) which are like ones from the early 1900's. I then headed back to the car and when I got there I still had about a mile to do.

I headed for For-Mar Nature Preserve which was absolutely awesome. They have all kinds of community education programs and a really neat little natural history museum that would be great for kids to visit. Anyone who lives in the Flint of area I'm sure have been and if not you should!!!

Genesee was done then it was on to Huron County but on the way there I wanted to make a stop at the Sanilac Petroglyphs Historic State Park which contains the only Native American rock carvings in Michigan. Unfortunately for me they are enclosed in a fence and it was closed on Saturday. The rest of the park was pretty interesting though with a former lumber camp area and huge sandstone rocks. It was also very hot and sweaty with lots of bugs hovering around my face. I had put on bug spray so it was all good but it was one of those wood
s walks where the trail is 6 inches wide with vegetation grabbing at my ankles and that feeling like I was breaking through cobwebs. Ughy!!! But beautiful. So I got a little over a mile there for Sanilac County.

Then I went to Harbor Beach and I don't want to seem mean but the town smells like soy sauce. Dow Chemical has a huge factory there and I just looked it up and although it smells like soy sauce throughout the town what they are making is ingredients for insecticides: Spinosad and spinetoram. Very interesting!!!

It's a touristy town but I wasn't feeling it. I walked a little bit around there but I wanted to go to the county park down the road. That park was frustrating because they had some nice trails but huge trees had fallen over every single trail and they hadn't bothered to clear them out of the way. So I didn't last long there and went back to town and found a trail that led from a city park into town and finally completed the 5 miles.

I got a text from Wes that he had finally made it to Port Sanilac so I headed down there and took it easy the rest of the night. We had a nice dinner at a sports bar right downtown. They were having a Saturday night concert at the bandshell right next to the marina and they have a great breakwall around the harbor. I really like Port Sanilac and I finished my walk the next day walking around town and to the beach. It was soooo hot in the boat it was stifling so we went over and immersed ourselves in very cold Lake Huron. Then we went and had dinner at the Stone Lodge which was excellent and highly recommended.

The next day I headed out for West Branch very early and got to see a beautiful sunrise!


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