Rain, rain, and more rain

It's possible we may need an arc if this rain doesn't stop soon. Hopefully mother nature is getting it out of her system before we spend the month of July outside! Today has been the perfect day for two of our favorite activities: driving around in the jeep and eating great food. We started our day with morel omelettes at the 45th Paralell Cafe in Sutton's Bay. This place has only a handful of tables but fantastic breakfast food and great coffee. Next we took a scenic drive up M22 through Northport to check out the Grand Traverse Lighthouse. It's always cool to visit these Great Lakes lighthouses on cold, rainy days as it makes it much easier to imagine their necessity in the past. We drove down the west side of the leelenau peninsula, stopping for a short hike up to pyramid point. This is probably my favorite spot in the lower penninsula of Michigan. I've included some photos of the point below.
We drove back through Traverse City and stopped to warm up with some coffee and the best tomato basil soup ever at The Dish. This place specializes in fresh homemade soups, sandwiches, quesadillas and other cafe foods. Traverse City has no shortage of great places to eat, and this one is worth a trip. Now we are driving to Bell Aire to our hotel for the night and a visit to Short's Brewery. I'll post a report of the brewery later.

36 Hours in Traverse City

This weekend epitomizes our particular brand of crazy. The plan was to head to Traverse City for some whitewater kayaking on the Boardman River with the Lansing Oar and Paddle Club. Cold weather and marginal water levels forced the club to cancel the outing however. I have a High School graduation to attend Sunday afternoon, but other than that we have a free weekend with no obligations. So what do we do? Pack the Jeep and head North of course! We found cheap hotel reservations in Traverse City for tonight and in Bellaire tomorrow. We'll hit some of our favorite up north restaurants and squeeze in a little hiking in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. In all we'll drive over 500 miles and drop about $120 on gas for 36 hours of up north time. Add to this the fact that it's raining and 48 degrees and you have the recipe for a classic Moose and Mary trip. We are just about the only vehicle headed North on 127! I'll post some pictures of our hike and maybe a report on our visit to Short's Brewery in Bellaire tomorrow.

Day 2: Only in Michigan

It was a beautiful night to camp in the forest. The threat of severe weather the dark skies at sunset predicted never materialized and we both were sound asleep by 10. I almost slept through the night, waking only to the sound of a Barred Owl calling out. We woke up at 7 am to the distant rumble of thunder and a dark sky to the west. The race was on! We managed to get breakfast (oatmeal) and coffee cooked and downed before the first rain drops started falling. We finished packing as the sprinkles rapidly changed to a full-on rain.
The first two hours of hiking were spent with our heads down trudging through the streams that poured down the trails searching for the path of least resistance downhill. Midway into our hike, the rain let up and eventually stopped. Today's hike passed through some surprisingly hilly terrain. We spent most of the day climbing in and out of ravines, passing over some beautiful cascading streams. The trail would cross a tributary of the Jordan River on a footbridge and then switchback several hundred feet to provide a bird's eye view of the valley before dropping into the next ravine and starting the process over again.
Just as soon as we had pulled off the hoods on our rain jackets a second, stronger thunderstorm rolled into the valley. Time seems to move more slowly when hiking in the rain. The forest tends to look the same everywhere when the rain is pouring down and it's hard to carry on a conversation over the noise. Eventually, you realize you have no choice but to stare at your feet and keep putting one foot in front of the other. This was our mode of operation for the last hour of today's hike. By the time we climbed back up Deadman's Hill we could wring water out of our socks (and would shortly!).
Upon reaching the Jeep we peeled off our wet clothes and changed into dry ones, taking advantage of the abandoned parking lot. As we drove away in the rain in pursuit of a hot cup of coffee it was hard to imagine the sun would ever shine again. 45 minutes later we were in Traverse City and there was not a cloud to be seen! The car thermometer reads 80 degrees as we drive South. Only in Michigan! All told we logged 19 miles of hiking in two days and saw some pretty cool country for the first time. Here are some pictures:

Day 1 in the books

Hello from Pinney Bridge Campground. We hiked 9 miles today and actually made pretty good time. We were on the trail almost exactly at 10 am and made it into camp at 2:30. With a lunch break thrown in we averaged 2.5 miles an hour. That may seem slow unless you've ever had 35 lbs on your back! I'm mindful of our hiking pace with some of the big mile days we'll have on the Long Trail in July.
The trail today passed through a variety landscapes. We started out with a big descent down deadman's hill through a mature forest of mostly hardwood trees. The next hour or so was spent passing through a variety of marshes, swamps and beaver ponds. The trail did follow the clear flowing waters of the Jordan River for a while, which made for pleasant hiking. We had an up close view of a pileated woodpecker too. It flew across the trail less than 10 feet in front of us. They are pretty cool birds. Early settlers called them "thundercocks" because of the sound they make drilling into trees. Pileated's are an indicator of a healthy forest because they need large stands of trees to survive.
The campground for tonight is really nice. It has a hand pumped well, vault toilets and picnic tables, which is the backcountry equivalent of staying in a Hilton. There are a couple other groups of hikers staying here, one with a rescue dog named Winston. Looks like we'll have someone to chase off any nighttime visitors to the campground!
Currently we are hanging out in the hammock listening to the Tigers on Mary's phone. If only we had a cold beer!
That's all for now. Here are some pictures from today's hike:

Packing

We leave tomorrow for the Jordan River Valley.  The night before a trip is when the excitement over an approaching trip runs head-on into the realization that none of the packing has been done and it’s 8:00 at night.  It never matters how far in advance the planning begins for a trip, or how excited we are.  Invariably, it ends being midnight on a school night searching for the carabiners that go on the nalgene bottles so they don’t fall out while hiking.  We live in a two story house, meaning that the most maddening part of the process usually goes something like this:  me:  “where is the jet boil?”  Mary: “um, I think it’s in the kitchen (downstairs).”  I go downstairs, retrieve our jetboil cooking system from the pantry where normal people would keep food if they actually stayed at home and return upstairs to the third bedroom.  The third bedroom in our house has become a bit of staging room.  Normal people might house a child in such a room.  We have backpacks, sleeping bags, dry suits and skis, scattered in a most random fashion.  As soon as I sit down to resume shoving items into my backpack Mary asks “where is my raincoat?”  Me:  “I think it’s hung up in the basement next to the dryer.”  I head downstairs in search of the raincoat but see the trekking poles sitting by the door to the garage.  Not wanting to forget them, I put them in the car, and head back upstairs.  Mary:  “did you get my raincoat?”  and on the process goes for what seems like a never-ending period of time.  All the while, our two cats sit at the top of the stairs with their chins on the floor, starring glumly at the backpacks that they know predict their impending abandonment.  Eventually everything is found and shoved into the car and the anticipation of another outdoor adventure returns.  The late night packing and sleep loss are more than worth it in the long run.  In a few more hours we’ll be headed north.