American Discovery Trail- Eden to Devou

 Today, I did half of a little section of the American Discovery Trail that will get me a little bit of swag and just make a fun connection. The ADT is a coast-to-coast route that was created out of a walk done by a group of people in 1976 called Hike-a-Nation. My friend Lyle was on that walk as was another acquaintence, Susan "Butch" Henley.

This trail doesn't particularly call to me, but a large part of the Ohio section is concurrent with the Buckeye Trail, and so I've done a big piece of it in Ohio. I'm not taking time right now to figure out how much of Ohio I've done and/or how much I haven't done. Kentucky has 8 little miles. The ADT website doesn't even give Kentucky it's own link; it's just lumped with Ohio. But Pat Long, featured yesterday, has made a patch if you complete the ADT in Ohio. Tomorrow I'll finish that. Today I made the connection with the Buckeye Trail at Eden Park in Cincinnati and crossed into Kentucky. I took a LOT of pictures, but I've narrowed it down to a few to share.

The first picture is actually taken from the ending point of the hike at Devou Park, Covington, KY. But it has a great view of Cincinnati.

This is just to prove that I connected to the Buckeye Trail. Link at the end of this post is of that hike.

A lot of the walk down to the Ohio River level is on the steps of the Immaculata Church, sometimes called the "Church of the Steps." This is only part of them.

The entrance to Centennial Park has columns made to look like riverboat smokestacks with flying pigs on them. These were designed for the city's bicentennial by Andrew Leicester. They were meant to be a humorous nod to the pork industry, and all the pigs who gave their lives to make the city great, which built Cincinnati. At one time its nickname was Porkopolis. At first people didn't like the pigs, but soon they embraced the symbol and now there is flying pig art all over.

Here is a statue of Cincinnatus, the Roman soldier-farmer for whom the city is named. He lived about 450 BC. There was a society of Colonial officers named for him which celebrated the volunteer military model which was the backbone of the Revolutionary period. George Washington was a member (and its first president) and General Arthur St. Clair who became governor of Ohio named the city for him in 1790. (Its previous name was Losantiville).

Crossing the Ohio River was a lot of fun. There are a bunch of bridges, but the trail uses the John A. Roebling bridge built in 1867. If the name is familiar, he also designed the Brooklyn Bridge, and used this design as the prototype. It originally cost $1.8 million, and was the largest suspension bridge in the world when built.

I only went a short way into Kentucky today, and due to construction, there wasn't as much of interest as on the Ohio side. Best picture is the view shown in the first photo above.

I'm staying in luxury in a motel thanks to someone's generosity, so after the hike and a little nap, I went and swam a few laps in the pool!

Tomorrow, I'll finish this little quest.

Miles walked in 2026: 651.5

American Discovery Trail, Eden Park, Cincinnati, OH, to Dovou Park, Covington, KY. 5.7 miles

See Buckeye Trail Cincinatti Spur

Sheltowee Trace- Day 26- No Bridge Over Troublesome Waters

 Today, we went back and hiked the missing piece in Kentucky. From now on, everything should be in north to south sequence.

Ha ha! I was going to post about the bridge over troublesome waters, but it washed out several years ago. However, it was OK, because Troublesome Creek didn't even have any water in it today. We aren't sure why it was so troublesome to someone.

There was a bridge, however, over Difficult waters. Difficulty Creek bridge had been recently repaired. And the creek valley was deep and had water in it, and it would have been a steep scramble down to creek level. We are very happy for bridges.

For a large part of the day we followed a very old road grade that we are thinking was used to access the Beatty Oil Well. Now here's an enigma of hairsplitting.

The Beatty Well struck oil in 1818 and produced quite a lot of oil. However, it was originally drilled to find brine (salt) not oil. The Drake Well in Pennsylvania claims to be the first commercial oil well (1859). The difference seems to be that the Drake Well was drilled specifically to find oil. To split the hairs even finer, Noble County, Ohio drilled for brine in 1814 and struck oil. It was bottled and sold as Seneca Oil, an all-purpose medicine. Most of the "snake oil" remedies sold for decades across the country were crude petroleum products and mixtures. So, who really had the first well? Who knows. But this is where the Beatty Well was, and at its height, it oozed 100 barrels of oil a day. It was sent down the Cumberland River to be repackaged and sold as linement, pitch, and lamp fuel.

We saw another box turtle, but this one's legs and the top of his head were gorgeous with bright yellow spots.

The mornings have been cool and foggy. I finally got a picture of the sun rays breaking through.

Tomorrow will be our last day over 13 miles. That's fine with me! Only 4 hiking days to go.

Miles hiked in 2026: 600.6
Sheltowee Trace miles: 272

Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. South of Ledbetter TH to Peters Mt. TH- 11.3 miles

See Sheltowee Trace- KY to TN

Sheltowee Trace- Day Off- Rain and Fun

 Boy, did we make a good choice as to which day to take off. Can you tell what we did in the morning? Laundry. We almost needed to jump in the dryers after running from the car. It poured all morning and a little bit into the afternoon.

Then we ate out. I had a B-B-Q pork sandwich, and we had to have hot fudge cake after that!

After one grocery stop, we came back to the campground and had to move to a different site which took a while, and we had to dry some stuff out because the tent I'm sharing with Sue leaked a bit. By then the weather had cleared and we decided to go see some local points of interest.

This is the view of the Big South Fork from the Blue Heron overlook.

We drove down to the Blue Heron mine town and the coal tipple bridge. This is very cool from a railroad fan perspective and has even more ties to Justus Stearns, but I'll just show you the bridge today. It's closed even for pedestrian use, but the ranger said they have asked Congress for money to make it safe for pedestrians.

We had seen two small arches along the road. One of them has a name- Wagon Arch, because supposedly before the road to the mine was built, it was part of a wagon road. Sue found a geocache there.

There was one more tiny arch. You can see how small it is in this picture with me climbing down from the top of it.

Then we came back to the campsite and Sue made us grilled cheese sandwiches. A great day off!

Miles walked in 2026: 566.8

Maybe a mile walking to various overlooks and things.

See Sheltowee Trace- New Support Crew

Sheltowee Trace- Day 1

 Bill and I were hiking at 8:09 this morning. That was awesome. It didn't heat up badly until after 2 pm. Here we are at the Northern Terminus.

OUr very first blaze of this hike! The trail is blazed pretty much adequately. Here it's nail-up blazes like this one and some arrows. The treadway was about half packed earth, and half loose rock. The footing on that can be difficult. Things are really dry. We would have had wet feet most of the day, but none of the stream crossings had any water.

A lovely Frittalary on some Wingstem flowers. Not going to look up what kind- I'm fading fast.

We started with a climb. Then we were up on a ridge for most of the day. The afternoon had a big down, then an up and down, and one final up. Not many views from the ridge though. This is the best I could get.

When we crossed one of the creeks (sorry, I'm not going to look that up either. Maybe I'll do a better job another day) there was this swinging bridge. Kind of fun, kind of weird. It does swing.

Up to the top of the next ridge. Shades of North Dakota- we shared the space with some cows. Of course you know I'll compare this to the NCT. The poison ivy is like Ohio. It hangs off the trees in an attempt to grab you. The loose rock is like New York.

We took the requisite selfie at the beginning. It's so wonderful to have Diane to take care of us. She had food ready pretty much when we got back to camp. She does a lot of the details that chew up time away from hiking. And she says she's having fun being with us.

The part that's pure Kentucky? We got in seed ticks again, like in 2019. This time I knew what had happened right away and proactively worked hard to get the little nasties off. Last time, they made me sick. But I think we acted fast enough and have the situation under control.

The temperature, depending on the thermometer made it to something between 87 and 92. Hot, very hot. I was strugging a bit the last 1.5 miles, but I made it. And the mileage... the trail wasn't exactly on the line in the FarOut app in a couple of places. The official mileage was 13.8. Bill's tracker said 14.2, but I thiink I'll stick with the 13.8.

Miles walked in 2026: 337.6
Miles walked on the Sheltowee Trace this trip: 13.8

Sheltowee Trace, Northern Terminus to Rt 799. 13.8 miles

See Three Amigos Roughing It

Four Bridges to Home

Yes, I am safely home. And I want to say a definite thanks to God that I managed to miss driving in any bad storms either coming or going. Mostly clear roads, and only a little rain to drive in. That said, it was a long time in the car today. The longest driving day in a couple of years- 10.5 hours. I'd like to quit doing that, but I need to develop a friend near Port Huron to break it up.

Anyway, here's where I was last night- with Dan and Ruth in Canandaigua, NY. They are two of the few people who have walked the entire North Country Trail and I love spending time with them. We have much in common.

I show you three of these bridges that define my route home pretty regularly. But I got pix of all of them today! First up is the Peace Bridge from Buffalo, NY, to Fort Erie, Ontario.

Then when you leave Canada at Sarnia/Port Huron, you cross the Blue Water Bridge into Michigan.

When I take the northern route home it puts me over the Zilwaukee Bridge.

And I'm adding this one in. This is a causeway type brigde over Sanford Lake. This was in the news in 2020 when the dam that created it failed. No one died, but it was pretty dramatic. Repairs have been made and the lake is beginning to refill. So I included this picture because you can see the ice surface beyond the guardrail.

I think I have a touch of Marie's cold. And I have to get up and go to a meeting in the morning which is why I had to get home today. I'm going to bed early. No walking occurred except to and from the car. I'm pretty stiff, but not as bad as I expected.

What a wonderful trip!

See Travel Adventures

Travel Day

The main project for everyone on Friday was to travel from the east side of the state to Lake Sakakawea in time for an evening hike.

There were clues to gather for the Scavenger Hunt, and we also had an agenda of our own. Of course I wanted to show Diane everything, but that wasn't going to work. She did want to see the two big railroad bridges across the Sheyenne. This is the Hi-Line Bridge in Valley City. It's double track up there!.

Then we went farther up the Sheyenne where it has been dammed to form Lake Ashtabula to see the Karnak Bridge. This one is single track. This bridge was there before they created the lake, because of course the valley was there and had to be spanned whether there was water in it or not. I loved seeing this bridge from a different perspective. The trail goes beneath both of these.

By then it was lunchtime. We stopped at a little cafe and had really good wraps or burgers. Acress the street was an unusually well-planned and attractive little park filled with flowers. The butterflies love the Joe-Pye Weed. Note both a Tiger Swallowtail and a Monarch.

This picture doesn't look like much, but it was the big "wow moment" of the day to me. This is a shot of the McClusky Canal from up above. The trail follows the canal for miles. While you are down there on the service road, the canal is your whole world. You just keep hiking with only the next bridge as your next goal. See McClusky Canal

From above, and this is a very busy place, it's just a thin wet line through the landscape. Here the canal is in a culvert under the state highway and the curved line is the service road that switchbacks up to cross the highway. The canal looks incredibly insignificant. I find this amazing, because it's such a huge part of the NCT North Dakota experience.

We arrived at Lake Sakakawea. This is the third-largest man-made lake in the US. It is created by damming the Missouri River.

We set up camp, wolfed down a fast dinner and arrived just in time for the ribbon cutting for a brand new segment of trail.

This is so new, I hadn't seen it. It's a three-mile secgment around the city of Riverdale, instead of following a street. It's closer to the lake with several views which is quite nice. Hikers in the hazy evening with the lake behind them.

This was followed by a campfire and s'mores which we took a pass on. It had been a long day.

Miles hiked- 3 North Country Trail around Riverdale ND.

See Sheyenne River State Forest

Manistee Riverwalk Reopens

 The Manistee Riverwalk is one of the nicest urban, water-side pathways anywhere. It's almost like a gamescape with varying surfaces, levels, views, etc. A part of it has been closed for repairs, but for once, my luck was fantastic. I had to go to Manistee today, and they just re-opened that section.

A lot of it is in sun, with pavement and flower beds. Lots of flower beds. You may see more of that tomorrow. Even this late, there were still nice things to see

Other parts are like shaded secret entrances to other worlds.

The primary business street, River Street, is a level above the walk. Many of the buildings are old. I love this section near the Cypress St Bridge. With the shadow of a railing from the upper level and the old stone and brick, it looks like a castle.

When you get out at the west end, the Manistee River empties into Lake Michigan. This is the Manistee Lighthouse.

On the walk back, there is this really nice view of the river. This is also a shipping channel as boats come in to Manistee Lake, so it has to be kept open and clear. In fact, it was a dredging operation that caused part of the walk to be closed for most of the summer. But this shows how there is a great variety of landscapes along the route.

Almost back to the beginning. This is the Cypress Street Bridge. It's a drawbridge and has been closed for repairs most of the last two years. I know everyone is happy to see it open again. You can just barely see the railroad swing bridge beyond in its open position. I know I did a post on that, but I can't find it to link. Another time.

Finally for today, another artsy shot. This is nothing but the reflection of a post. But I like it a lot.

Most of the day was spent finishing up the necessary stuff I've been working on and then getting it delivered. This walk was my reward.

Miles hiked in 2024: 473.9 Manistee Riverwalk, both directions. 3.5 miles

See Manistee Riverwalk