Crawford, Roscommon and Clare Counties

At the end of the last post, I was wimping out on finishing walking in Lake City. It was a stinking rotten afternoon and I had just had enough. My sister and I headed to Grayling where we planned to spend the night and the next day to walk in Crawford and Roscommon Counties. The forecast was for better weather and I was really hoping that would be so. And it was. Yay!!!

This was the scene outside the window of our lovely Super 8 motel room.

We ate breakfast and headed to Hartwick Pines State Park which is an awesome place. It is just east of Grayling. My husband and I had been there in 2005 but it was in the middle of summer and I had a horrible case of poison ivy going on all over my face. I had felt like Quasimodo. So it was better at this time of year. No mosquitoes for one thing.

Hartwick Pines has 40 acres of old growth pine. The trees are beautiful and I love how quiet and peaceful it is walking through them. We walked on the Old Growth Trail which was only about a mile long. I wanted to walk on the Au Sable River Trail but was having trouble finding it so we got back in the car and drove to the trailhead.

Along the Old Growth Trail. The trees are magnificent!

Crossing a bridge along the Au Sable River Trail.

The trail was mostly one track and pretty muddy from all the rain on the previous days.

Crossing a river along the trail.

This was the beautiful hemlock grove.

We got done with our 5 miles in Crawford County and drove to Grayling where we had lunch at a yummy place called Goodale's Bakery. It is more than a bakery, it also has a deli where we ordered sandwiches. The bakery part was extensive and delicious looking. I was trying to be good so I didn't indulge but Angie said it WAS good!

After we ate, Angie wanted to go to the quilt shop down the street. It was pretty nice and although I don't quilt I picked up a couple things for my daughter for Christmas.

Now that we were full it was time to do Roscommon County so we headed to North Higgins Lake Park. It's not a huge park and it wasn't very busy at that time of the year. But it was really pretty and the lake and sky were intensely blue.

The water in Higgins Lake is very clear and it has a maximum depth of 135 feet. It is fed by springs and runoff. It flows into Cut River which flows into Marl Lake and then flows to Houghton Lake. Houghton in turn is the headwaters of the Muskegon River.


One of the bridges was out and we had to climb over rocks to get to the other side. Fun!!!

More trees. As I said, North Higgins Lake State Park wasn't very big so we drove around the lake to South Higgins Lake State Park so I could finish up my 5 miles.

It was weird that the north side of the lake was serene and quiet and the south side had whitecaps. It was really windy. I walked quickly and completed my last mile.

Another view along the trail. I bet it's really fun and busy in the summertime.

We were done for the day and headed down 127 to Clare. We decided to stay at the Doherty Hotel which is right downtown. It was opened in 1924 and was pretty cool but our room was in a newer annex. We ate dinner there and decided to eat breakfast at the Whitehouse Restaurant which is an eensy weensy diner type restaurant across the street from the hotel. I had a delicious omelet. Then my sister headed to church and I was going to complete my walk while she prayed so we could get home in time to see the baseball game. Yes, our world does seem to revolve around baseball at this time of year.

Clare is the eastern trailhead of the Pere Marquette Trail that we walked in Baldwin. I headed out east of Clare but only got about a mile before there was a sign that said I was going into another county. It was still frosty along this part of the trail.

Wetland with swans.

I walked back to the hotel because I couldn't figure out how to get to the westbound part of the trail. Turned out I had to drive out of town to pick it up. It was really really beautiful. It paralleled the road but there is vegetation so you couldn't see the road. Very cool.

When I was walking out I totally missed seeing this cool tree. From the opposite direction it caught my eye. It made me think of how things can be seen differently from different perspectives and got me to thinking about politics, etc. Pretty heavy. I'm a philosopher now!!!

Haha. This isn't very flattering but I don't care. This was toward the end of my last walk for the weekend.

I got done walking and headed back to the hotel. We took off, made a wrong turn, stopped in Mt. Pleasant for gas and then drove straight home so we could watch the Tigers beat the Yankees. So I have 6 more counties to do and I don't know if I'll get them done this year. I'm not walking around up there after hunting season starts so I've just about run out of time.

Best Laid Plans...

This past Thursday my sister, Ang, and I headed up north with some very well developed plans. We were going to walk in Lake County, then go to Manistee and do the Riverwalk and then go to Ludington. Then on Friday we were going to take the SS Badger ferry and go across Lake Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I was going to rent a car there and we were going to drive up and get the 3 counties in the Upper Peninsula done.

So we drove up I-75 to Saginaw and then across to Baldwin which is the western trailhead for the Pere Marquette Rail Trail.

These two pictures are of metal sculptures at the Michigan Welcome Center in Clare. It is a tribute to the men and women who work on our highways. They basically risk their lives every day because there are jerks who ignore the speed limits in construction areas.

On the way to Baldwin we passed through Idlewild which was a major recreational area for African Americans. Other resorts discriminated against them so they made their own place to go. All of the great black performers played there from the 20's to the 60's. It is a National Historic District. We didn't stop to explore since it was raining and we had a lot to get done. But I am definitely going to revisit the area.

The Pere Marquette Railroad operated a line from Saginaw to Ludington but parts of the line were closed in 1991. There is a wonderful rail to trail from Midland to Clare to Baldwin. We made our way to Baldwin which is just west of Idlewild and braced ourselves for a wet walk.
It was my favorite kind of rail trail with water on both sides.

It was really pretty but muted because of the drizzle. We got back to the car with soaking wet coats and kind of low spirits.

Our next stop was going to be Manistee and we were really excited to walk the riverwalk along the Manistee River in downtown. We drove into town but it was raining and blowing so hard we just didn't have the heart for it. We sat in the McDonalds for a while and decided to head to Ludington instead and maybe do Manistee when we got back from Wisconsin and the U.P.

Luckily when my sister was checking us into the Best Western, the lady behind the desk told her that she'd heard that the ferry was cancelled for the next day because of high winds. We checked in anyhow and took it easy, checked the weather reports on the news and they were expecting 25 foot waves on Lake Michigan the next day. Thank God they cancelled. Although the next day looking at the Lake I doubt that anyone would have gone out.

We went out for dinner at the Jamesport Brewery which was awesome. It's in a historic old building with heavy wood doors and beams. The food was great and we had a good time.

In the morning we went and checked out the lake. Here is the break wall in Ludington.

Ludington harbor light.

The SS Badger sitting there doing nothing in the middle of the morning.

I took a couple pictures of the Jamesport Brewery.

Check out the neat old doors.

We headed back to Manistee. It would rain for a while and then almost clear up, the sun would almost come out and then it would start raining again. It was so windy that everything was blowing by. But it wasn't raining when we got to Manistee so we started walking along the Riverwalk toward the lake.

The Riverwalk is great with lots of wood walkways. It was blowing really hard on our walk to the lake. I felt like one of those Weather Channel nutty people that stand out in the hurricanes.

An old shack along the walk.

The waves were rolling pretty high by the lighthouse.

Looking out toward the lake.

We did the whole walk but I still had some miles to get. We walked through downtown and ate at the House of Flavors which is an old time diner kind of place. The food was really good. They had all kinds of ice cream too. Then I walked some more, came back and went to a used bookstore and a couple other stores and then headed out of town.

This is a building that was for sale. Very pretty.

The back of a store on the Riverwalk.

Then we were going to do Missaukee County and went to Lake City. I was grumpy, it was overcast and drizzly. I didn't really like where I was walking and wimped out after about 2 miles. We then headed to Grayling and checked into a motel and waited for the baseball game to come on. We had a moment of panic when we realized that the TBS in our room wasn't working but the issue was resolved to our satisfaction and we got to watch that almost 2 innings of the Tigers' game.

A couple of pictures from Lake City.