An Excellent Day with the Original Adventure Buddy

Over the years... and it has been quite a few years... I've done a lot of adventuring with friend Ellen. I don't think we coined the term, but we called ourselves Adventure Buddies. We managed to get outside and do something together (hike, bicycle, ski, kayak) about once a month for a number of years. Then she got a granddaughter. Well. That threw in a major monkeywrench since the girl lives several hours away.

Anyway, she doesn't let me take her picture very often, so I'll just share this one that is one of my favorites from 15 (yes fifteen!) years ago. And you can see that Maggie was still alive. This was taken at Gales Pond. The last hike we did together was a year ago in the spring. We really need to get back into some kind of rhythm.



Today we explored the Pentwater Wagon Road. Ellen introduced me to this pathway, again, 15 years ago. It is the (very) old road into Pentwater. In fact, it's not really a road any more. But it's still supposed to be a public right-of-way.

But Ellen had discovered that someone has placed a fence across it. She called the township, and they said "public." So we thought we'd see what the status is.

It starts out looking just fine. Would this condition remain?

The morning was sunny and cool. I can never decide, but this might be my favorite picture from this fall. Wagon Road still fine.

Lots of blueberries along the pathway. They turn a nice red in the fall.

Oops. Yup, about a mile in, there is not only fence, but a serious barrier. We took pictures and the location. Ellen will contact the township once again. It's kind of annoying, because you used to be able to walk all the way into town on this.

On the way back, we found one little blob of yellow Witches' Butter fungus.

Since that hike was shorter than we had hoped, she took me to two small, newish nature preserves that I had not yet been to. I'll share those in the days ahead. All together, we managed to hike 3.6 miles. Then we headed back to her house.

Ellen has a long history of treating me with wonderful meals. Today was no exception. She made us sandwiches of some yummy brown bread (toasted), turkey, apple, goat cheese, strawberry jam, and greens. Wowzer!

Needless to say, not a lot of serious work happened today. But that's OK. I'm gloriously happy at the wonderful adventures.

Miles hiked in 2025 (I've added all 3.6 on here) 433

Pentwater Wagon Road, out and back 2.2. Pine Forest Loop 0.4. Dumaw Woodland 1.0 miles

See my first hike on the Wagon Road

Lost in the Fungal Labyrinth

 
I found two interesting fungi on my hike yesterday. The first is an earthstar. Supposedly these are common, but I've only ever seen them three, maybe four times. This one is fairly large, about 3 inches across, and already kicked loose of it's unstalked moorings by some other walker.



I think this is Astraeus hygrometricus, or the Barometer or Water-Measure Earthstar. But if so, then I think I mis-identified the ones I showed you in Barometer Earthstar. Or maybe that post has two different kinds. Sigh... this mushroom stuff is just hard, unless you only listen to the stories they tell. It looks more like it is getting ready to stand up and walk away than to tell me the moisture content of the air.



But at least I can get that one in the right group.

I also found these beautiful little orange guys.



For once I remembered to look at more than the tops,



The undersides are stunning! I thought identifying them would be a snap with that unusual pattern.



Well, hmmm... it helped. It does narrow down the choices, but even so, if it's what I think it is, orange is a bit of an unusual color. Nevertheless, I think it's Daedaleopsis confragosa, the Thin-walled Maze Polypore. And, yes, that is named for the mythological guy, Daedalus, who created the maze on Crete that held the Minotaur.

There aren't very many fungi with that kind of gill pattern, so this is my best guess.

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The Wagon Road, AKA Bass Lake Blvd.

 
It was an awesome day. I thought about making this post "An Awesome Four Hours," but there would have been WAY too many pictures. Tomorrow may be more fungus fun. Today, I'll stick to the Wagon Road. This is the old Bass Lake Boulevard, but now it's only a seasonal route. It's the former road into Pentwater.

You've seen this route before, but you'd never know it if you followed the link at the bottom of the post. This time, I started from the south end, beyond where Ellen and I went before, and of course the season was different.

My day started at 2 pm. I managed to sleep really well after work, and that's always a huge plus, meaning that I didn't feel horrible for the rest of the day.

I wanted to be sure I knew how to find the south end of this trail (it's now used mostly by local hikers and walkers), and I did find it. There were some downed trees to get around at that end, but most of the trail was clear.



I discovered really soon that it was easy to be lulled into taking the wrong path and to end up in the cemetery. I'd never been back in this old section with lots of family plots. That would be a neat place to explore.



But this error was easily corrected. Basically, any time your aren't sure what to do, just stay at the base of the hill, between the hill and a wetland area that borders a small creek (unnamed, or I don't know its name) that flows into Bass Lake.

There were a few mud puddles after the week's rain, but I got around them with dry feet. They made nice mirrors for the trees.



This is by far the best picture of the day. It looks like I did some hi-def playing with it, but this is exactly how it came out of the camera. It was just that kind of afternoon.



For the most part the day was overcast, but just for a minute some blue sky opened up, allowing this picture with strong primary colors.


Even these drying leaves have enough natural oils left to make the remains of last night's rain bead up.


And as the sun got lower and lower, the views through to the creek became more dramatic. I love shots like this one.


More fooling around on the way home. But I think it's back to bed now for a while. Still, I've become very grateful for any Saturday that I don't feel like... well... you can guess.

	See The Wagon Road
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The Wagon Road

 



I'll go back and show you the rest of the flower show after this next installment in "Joan and Ellen's Excellent Adventures." So Ellen said, "Have you ever walked the old Pentwater Wagon Road?"

Now, I think that I'm something of a local trail expert, but I didn't know about this one. I thought maybe I'd been on part of it with another friend quite a few years ago, but it was not the same place, so I got to see someplace completely new, and it was great! The first picture shows the beginning of what is left of this old route, and also gives an idea of how much snow was left.



In one of the sections of snow there were incredible deer tracks. Look at the size of this print! OK, I have small feet, but this is really large! You can see the dewclaw prints. I suspect it's a buck, based on the size.


Several really large white pine trees flank this old route. Since almost every white pine in Michigan was cut in the early years of the 20th Century, it's really cool when one of these giants is located. It's possible that this one was young then, too small to be bothered with, or passed over for some reason. The bases of most of these large trees are now entrances to dens for some critter. It's hard to know what kind. It's not a porcupine- those are easy to spot because of their scat, but it could be a woodchuck, or a rabbit. It's even large enough that it might be a fox.



On the north side of the old road the land rises steeply, and at the top is the newer, paved road into town. I just love old, "hidden" routes like this. I've driven the high road for years and never knew that the wagon road was still open, a public pathway, just a few yards away! On the south, however, the land is nearly on the same level with the wagon road, and often fades off into marshes such as this one.



And look who else thinks that it's getting a bit spring-like! Some of the geese from Ratty's blog flew over here for the day. I thought that the reflections of their butts in the shallow water was pretty funny!


By noon the temperature was in the 50s, the sun was shining, and I was hiking in shirt sleeves. Glorious! Out and back was about 4 miles. We lunched at Ellen's on apple and cheese burritos with green tomato- apple chutney. Mmmmm. Then we knitted and crocheted, and talked about books. Maggie got to go too, of course. Did you see her in the first picture? Our timing was great, as it started to pour around 3 pm, and we've now had an inch of rain!