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.