Spirit of the Woods Hike- September 2026

 I missed the August hike because I was at a vendor event. Today, we had about 35 hikers! Huge group, but they get spread out pretty quickly due to different hiking speeds.

Except for a hike at the Trail Fest, this was my last chance to get in a good workout. Four of us quickly moved to the front of the pack. Roxy (L) is a regular, Barb (C), and Amber (R) were first timers with our group. We had some good talks about trail stuff.

This was at 96th St, which is our chapter's southern boundary. But I wanted to go farther before turning around. I think others did too, but I went on alone, because I knew I was probably going the longest distance of anyone.

I went until I hit where an old logging RR crosses the trail before I turned around. I had told the hike leader not to worry about waiting for me to return since I was going farther, but the guy (one of our Dans) who was sweep (the person who stays at the end and makes sure we don't lose anyone) did stay and I met up with him on the way back. That was actually very nice, because we hadn't had a good talk for quite a while. We have quite a bit in common.

I like this little grouping of mushrooms. No clue what they are.

Our chapter has added a couple of structural items on this section this year. One is the other trail register. I've talked about it, and showed pictures the day we installed the northern one. This just proves we have the other one. It's beside the Ed Chappel boardwalk and deck which was built 2009-2011.

Also added in 2026 are two of these little bridges with turnpike approaches over seasonally wet (and sometimes with running water) areas. You can look at these and just know that Pete built them. They are perfect.

There will be one more work project in this area this year, to put on the rest of the traction strips. Today was a good test of those because there was some heavy rain in the night and the wood was slimy. We put one strip in the center of every other 2x6 decking board. It is possible to slip with this spacing, especially if you have small feet. But if you are careful to get either the ball or heel of your shoe on a strip they are great. The Forest Service is again providing these for us. They are expensive, but they will last much better than any other option. I'll miss that work day, and the October hike.

I've done a few things to get ready since getting home, but I figured with a long hike, I'd be pretty tired.

Miles walked in 2026: 312
NCT miles walked in 2026: 122.7

North Country Trail from Jenks Rd TH to RR grade south of 96th St and back. Lake and Newaygo Counties, MI. NCT 4 miles each way, extra to get to car because parking was really full! 0.8 mile. Total 8.8 miles.

See Spirit of the Woods Hike - July 2026

Natural Bridge and Rocks

 September 19, 2019. We didn't walk as far this day, only about 3 miles. But we wanted to see the most famous arch in the area, called Natural Bridge (not to be confused with Natural Arch). This is the view from the top of the arch, er... bridge.

And here is the top of the arch. Looks like a bare trail, right? Well, it is- it's just that after you get out past the ends where trees can grow, it's only as wide as the stone.

This is another arch you could walk on top of or below. Here is one end from below.

Aand looking the other direction

This was another fantasyland day. The staircases were just magical.

Our other goal for the day was to see Balanced Rock. The branches obscure it a bit, but I think you can see the shape.

Here's another interesting geological thing we saw throughout the park. This is called Liesegang banding. It's not totally understood, but it is almost always found in sedementary rock. I thought it was really cool.

In other news: I don't think I covered yesterday but they are the same. I concentrated on the two biggest projects and made good progress. If only there weren't a lot of other things on the list too. Also went shopping and got a bunch of food for the trip.

Not a quality item: If you made it this far and are local, you know it is "our" Doug who drowned on Wednesday. My friend Cathy's husband. The name has now been publicly released. Impossibly sad, but we know he has gone to his heavenly home. It's just hard to understand the timing and mechanism of his transition.

See Arch, Point, Tunnel, Bridge

Arch, Point, Tunnel, Bridge

 September 18, 2019. I'm skipping the 17th for now. We took a day and went to the Kentucky State Botanical Garden. That was awesome, but I'll save that for another time.

Our first destination for the day was Gray's Arch. This is one of the biggest ones at about 80 feet high. Very impressive. But it was hard to get pictures because it's surrounded with trees.

Our biggest goal of the day was to find a trail that goes to Hanson's Point. It's not on the official maps, but everyone said we shouldn't miss it, and that it wasn't hard to find. So we went hunting, and it was well worth it.

This trail goes out on a peninsula of land that sticks out into the central valley. The peninsula gets narrower and narrower as you approach the end. Near the end of the point it's bare rock.

The views from there were the most far-reaching we'd seen. The valley is the Red River Gorge.

This is a fun item. I zoomed the picture in, but there is a tower of rock out there that isn't eroded away. It's called "Revenuer's Rock" because supposedly moonshiners operated out there during prohibition. No one could get to them undetected.

Then we drove through the Nada (say NAY-duh) Tunnel. This was hand cut in 1910 as a railroad tunnel for logging. Now it's a single-lane road tunnel. Yes, it's the small dark rectangle at the bottom of that pile of red rocks. It's 900 feet long.

We had just one more stop to make for the day. We wanted to walk the suspension bridge for the Sheltowee Trace across the Red River. I'm glad we got to walk it then, because it was destroyed in floods last year. There's a walkaround if the water is too deep to cross. Guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks.

We walked about 8 miles that day.

In other news: I hunkered down and worked on my projects. Time is running out, and I had to add another one that I had forgotten about to the list. Yikes!

See Seven More Arches

Seven More Arches

 September 16, 2019

I haven't looked very hard for the notes from this trip since I have so much to do, but our goal was to visit all the arches in Red River Gorge. I think there are 17 of them. We did manage it, and there was an interesting variety. We went to seven of them on this day.

I'll start with the most spectacular. In fact, this may be my favorite of the whole trip. It's a solid pillar of rock on one end and just a little balance point on the other. This is Sky Bridge, and you walk both on top of it and underneath it.

The view from the top.

Hensen's Arch is totally different- just a little double chimney with some water flowing in. You could go down inside it.

Look down at the end of those half moons that aren't quite arches. The last one IS an arch. This is Hidden Arch. Yes, it's small.

This one was medium sized and called Silvermine Arch.

Angel Windows was fun- it's two arches at an angle to each other. Just person size.

It's easy to figure how this one got it's name- Whistling Arch. Although we didn't hear it whistling.

As if that wasn't enough, we also went to Rock Bridge, so named because there is water flowing under it. I guess that's not terribly common. Most of these are made by wind erosion.

In just under 8 miles, we took in 7 arches. I also got what I think is one of my best wildlife pictures- a fence lizard eating a grub or caterpillar of some kind.

In news from today: I worked really hard and spent a block of time on each of my projects that have to be completed in one week!

See Whittleton Arch and D. Boon Hut

Modern Dentistry Is Amazing!

 Today I had the tooth that could be saved fixed. What they did today used to take a couple of months. This took 2 hours!

The blue line points to the screw-on nut that is keeping the dental implant covered until I can afford to get that tooth made.

The black line points to the crown they did today. I know... best tooth in my mouth, right?

It used to be that you had to get the rot drilled out of the tooth and filled. Then they would take an impression. That would be sent to the lab. In about a month a temporary crown came back and that would be fitted, trying to fashion it so that your bite wouldn't be altered. Then it would go back to the lab again. The final crown would come in another month, and it might be really good or not. And it was usuallly gold. I have a couple of those.

Of course, I had a lot of crowns on my front teeth before the partial plate was made. If you missed the whole long, sad dental saga of my life, and care, you can click the link. The point is, I've been subjected to a lot of bad dentisry, and some good but still brutal dentistry over the last 69 years. This was quite different.

They do almost none of that anymore, except drill and fill the bad tooth if needed. It was needed. But the filling material is some newer product that they squeeze in with something like a pastry bag. No more scooping and tamping until they think the crevices are filled.

Then...and this is the best... no more impressions that make you gag. The tech uses a small, hand-held 3-D scanner and just keeps waving it around inside your mouth until the computer builds an accurate picture of your teeth and gums.

This is that part of my lower jaw with the cover on the implant post (the round thing). The white part is the dentist's first go at computer-generating the crown. There was a previous view without the crown that tells the computer how to make it fit on the old tooth. The purple is just like you remember... it's where the tooth is going to hit the upper teeth, so he took a little bit off that.

They also do a scan with your mouth closed, so they can get the accurate bite. And the details of my partial plate are rendered quite accurately.

A machine grinds the shape of the cap out of a block of lithium disilicate. Then they check that for proper fit and decent bite. At this point, the crown is very fragile.

But, it's actually a type of porcelain. So then in goes into a kiln for about 20 minutes and comes out hard and perfect. One last fitting, glue it on, and out the door. I think this is the only crown I've ever had made that didn't mess with the bite. And no restrictions- I can eat and chew as desired right away.

Basically, not painful at all. They use a numbing jelly before they inject the... whatever it is. I'm sure it's not novacaine any more. It had all worn off by about 1 pm, and the only consequence was a tiny bit of a headache.

I am in awe of the speed, efficiency, technology, and painlessness of the entire process.

As a reminder, this is part 3 of a 4-part, expensive project.
1. Remove broken molar- last fall
2. Replace that hole with an implant- over the winter
3. Crown on the rotten tooth next to that one- today
4. Crown on the implant- as soon as I can save enough money.

I am blogging early today because I have a meeting later, and I'm going to take a short walk on the way to it. Most of what I did today was dentist and prep for the meeting.

Later:
Miles walked in 2026: 303.2
NCT miles walked in 2026: 114.7

North Country Trail, Lake Co, MI. North from 40th St for 1.25 miles and back. 2.5 hot, humid miles.

See Scouting Out the Dental Landscape