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.