Pere Marquette Conservation Park

  Today was the ribbon cutting for what will be an amazing recreational facility. Right now, the property has been purchased, and funding is being sought for the rest of it. 300 acres that used to be part of Dow Chemical have now been sold to the township.

The opening included a ribbon cutting and a lot of official people making short speeches. OK, there were free hot dogs too. There's not a lot to see yet, but the plans are really astounding. It will be a huge regional draw if they manage to accomplish even half of the plan. Quite a few people showed up for the ceremony and to study the 12 posters of the plans.

Remember I said that Cathy and I took a walk last Friday but I was waiting to tell you about it. We went to this property and walked a couple of the existing trails. Not much to see yet, and since we managed to hike in the downpour of the day last week, I didn't even get any pretty pictures.

I'm not going to put a lot more about today in my blog because Mason County Press hired me to cover the event, so most of what I have to say was sent to them just a short while ago.

But here's a panorama shot. I left it large so you can click. This has Pere Marquette Lake on the left and the bed of the former Mason and Oceana Railroad on the right. This is proposed to become a multi-use trail.

Just a pretty water pattern.

And I'm going to show you last night's sunset beause it was really nice.

In other news: I edited in the morning, and did this event in the afternoon and wrote up the article. Also did laundry. In between all that I've been working on the trailer. I was wondering why I was tired, but I think that explains it!

See When Trails are Too Mushy