Life of Wry

It was a great day for a typical Michigan hike. As Sierra hikers, we needed to adjust our expectations. They don’t have mountains, nor massive expanses of granite, nor conifers and redwoods and giant sequoias. But they DO have forests, seemingly endless forests, with lots of gentle ups and downs. They have rivers and lakes and poison ivy. We hear they have mosquitoes in the summer, so fall hiking was nice: cool, quiet, dark. I don’t know if that was typical, but we had an exceptionally fun hike today.

Here are some pics:

Driving west and maybe north a bit? I won’t say it all looks the same, but as unfamiliar as I was with the area, the farm and forest landscape did have a look. Without a map, I’d be lost.

Ah… here’s a map, and yes, north and west of A2:

Just as we were completing our hike, the rain started. Nice of it to hold off. We headed over to a town called Hell. It’s famous and very kitschy. I got a souvenir mug (right?) and we posed for one of these:

We came home, got cleaned up, then headed out to Chelsea for dinner. We ate at the Common Grill, a wonderful restaurant in what looked like a really charming town (it was dark and rainy, so hard to tell, but we hear it’s a very nice little town). The Common Grill is owned by Jeff Daniels, of all people! He grew up in Chelsea. No Jeff Daniels sightings, but a great dinner. We were joined by Peter and Maya! Extra special.

I keep thinking, over and over: it’s going to be a very fun 4-5 years of visits, in all seasons. My hope is to go 2-4 times a year, and am realizing there is so much to see and do that is very un-California-like. I just keep smiling at the thought.