Taking to the Trail III (d)

Very end of the day. I had hiked 13 + miles and stopped to rest at this little Huron-River access site. A father, a son, and an uncle had come straight from work, wandered into the river with no special equipment to begin casting around this downed tree. It probably felt wonderful! Although they seemed to be catching nothing, it appeared to be most important to be wetting lines (?and their nethers?) on a warm and comradely September afternoon.

I finally ended at fourteen miles. my feet were aching, but not as much as eleven and a half miles had made me hurt three days previously. The temperature was scheduled to hit eighty-five degrees and seemed to have made every bit of it. The worst part was not the full heat of the afternoon because it brought a breeze, but at the end of the day - even with the temperature falling slightly - the air got very still as I walked back to the car in full sun.

The last thing I saw on the way out of the woods was this rather gigantic old oak looking like something out of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves nightmare forest sequence. It probably has quite a few stories it could tell.

RANT: Although my change of approach has helped me, the multi-use paths through the Island Lake State Recreation Area are populated by may bikers for whom a hiker must, understandably, step aside. The problem comes from a few bikers who either grimace at me as if I've done something wrong by merely existing, or even growl at me. The most memorable incident occurred a year ago when a nattily -clad rider snarled, "You're in my way!" This on a thirty-foot-wide stretch of gravelly trail with a number of paths through it. Evidently I was supposed to guess which part he wanted and yield it to him. I have taken the approach recently of saying, "You're welcome!," to anyone for whom I step out of the way, whether they say, "Thank you," or not. I have noticed that several say, "Thank you," the next time I see them. To all public bikers: for heaven's sake, folks, do you have any idea how many mosquitoes I collect in the five or ten seconds it takes you to pass me while I huddle in the brush? A couple of simple words doesn't seem too much.