Hike, Bike and Ice (part 2)

Any morning that you can wake up with the sound of the waves less than 50 yards from your front door, you know is going to be a good day! The waves also so relaxing that we didn't wake up as early as we originally planned!  Hitting the trail at 7am can't happen if you don't wake up until 7:30!

The fog over the lake left an almost eerie look to the morning and brought with it some chilly air.  This was not going to be the morning for the shorts out on the trail today!  We grabbed a quick breakfast in the room (hard boiled eggs and refrigerator oatmeal!) and headed out on the 20 minute drive to the trail head.

I didn't have a chance to get a photo of the parking lot of the trail but there were a few cars already here... which we figured were probably people that were out camping on the trails somewhere.  A few minutes later we were on our way!  The fog out on the lake was floating into the woods so it gave the trail a very calming, serene feeling.

Start of the trail

A few miles in on the trail, we came across Chapel Falls.  This is a high cascading falls that you can either see right from the top or from across the ravine.  When we got to the overlook to the falls from the other side of the ravine, it was so foggy you could hardly see the falls - but you still could hear it!

Chapel Falls

A short while later we made it to Chapel Rock.  We actually didn't even realize we were there until we were literally right next to it because the fog was still so thick!  In the below picture, the beach is actually just beyond the tree but you can't even see it below!  From here, our original plan was to head down toward the beach and head south, but yesterday when Darrin was looking at the map, he asked if we wanted to add a few miles to our adventure and head up to Spray Falls.

Chapel Rock

We hiked up towards Spray Falls, knowing that we had about a mile and a half to travel.  With the current pace we were hiking we guessed on how long we would have to hike to get there.  With the dense fog still around us, it was difficult to tell where we were and how for we had traveled.  After a while, we knew that we were getting close, however with the rain that fell the night before, the trail was starting to get really muddy and, although my shoes were already wet, I decided that I didn't need to get them covered in mud to. We opted to turn back around and head back to Chapel Rock/Beach.  We figured that we were probably only a short distance from the falls.  I guess we will have to come back another time to find Spray Falls!

Lunch stop @ Chapel Beach

Once we got back to Chapel Rock, we actually saw the first other people of the day on the trail!  We left the parking lot nearly 3 hours ago and did not see a single person on the trail, up until now!  The dense fog obviously kept more people at home early in the morning. We stopped and chatted with them for a while and then headed down to the beach to find a spot to have lunch.   

The beach was deserted except for us, a seagull and one gentleman walking along the shoreline.  We found a big log to stretch out on, have lunch and relax for a while,  With the fog and cold breeze, we didn't stay down on the beach for too long.  It was time to get back on the trail and keep moving!  Darrin was on a mission to get back to the motel in time for the Packers pre-season game.

The lake is out there somewhere!!

The fog still was just as thick as this morning, even though it seemed to be trying to roll back out.  We kept watching it roll out, only to have it roll back in a few minutes later.  When we got to Grand Portal Point, we came across a group that had actually camped on the bluff the night before.  They commented on their fabulous view that morning - a large white wall of fog!  

Mosquito Beach

We kept moving and before long we made it to Mosquito Beach where it was time to stop for a snack break.  While we were sitting on the shoreline, I noticed a bald eagle flying nearby, which landed right on the top of one of the nearby trees.  It was then that we noticed a second one soaring around the same tree.  We watched them for a while, until they took off, heading south and getting lost in the treeline.

Mouth of Mosquito River

 Next stop, the mouth of the Mosquito River. We had fun looking at all of the "rock men" stacked up on the bigger rocks!  Someone obviously was having fun building these little piles all over the mouth of the river! By this time, I lost track of how many miles we actually walked but I knew that we were on the last leg of our adventure - and we were both starting to get tired!  Knowing that we were at less than 5 miles to go, we kept us moving!

Mosquito Falls

After nearly a full day of hiking we finally made it to the final stop on our adventure - Mosquito Falls!  We had a mile to go, we were tired and getting hungry so we didn't waste much time at the falls.  We made it back to the car, scraped some mud off our shoes, exchanged those wet shoes for flip flops and headed back to town!

This was a awesome day, but time to go back and put our feet up for a but while we contemplate dinner!

Dinner at Mudoon's Pasty Shop

We finished out this day with dinner from Muldoon's Pasties.  Last night was the best fish in town, tonight, the best pasties in the Upper Peninsula!  The rest of the evening was spend relaxing at the motel, chatting with the group of scuba divers that were staying right near us and watching football.

Total mileage for today = 16.5
trip total so far = 27.5

Tomorrow - final day of vacation, heading to the UP state fair!

Hike, Bike and Ice weekend 2014 (Part 1)

This past weekend was the 4th annual mom/son Michigan Adventure weekend.   From my last posted, I said announced this year's challenge of 50 miles of hiking, biking and running. We knew this was going to be a tough challenge, a lot of miles but we were going to give it our best shot!

 When we made it into town, our motel room was not quite ready (we anticipated this since we were getting to town before lunch!), so we left the car at the motel, grabbed the bikes and headed out to Sand Point and Munising falls. The falls are just a short ride from the motel and are one of the first stops that we make when we get to town.  We were going to head to Sand Point first, but for some reason, we decided to stop at the Falls first.

While we were hiking back town from the falls overlooks, we ran into group that was trying to get a group picture.  We offered to take the photo so they could all be in it. We started chatting with this group a bit and found out that the one young man was originally from the Czech Republic, currently living near Detroit, the other two young men were his friends and the older couple was his parents that were visiting from the Czech Republic for 2 weeks.  The boys were looking for waterfalls that they could actually walk it... They were on the mission!  Since Darrin and I have visited virtually every waterfall in the area, we knew exactly where they needed to go.  We gave them directions to Tannery and Memorial Falls, right down the road!  Darrin's favorite falls to walk though/under.

 After we got back to the parking lot, we decided that we didn't need to go to Sand Point.  We could just take this group to the falls.  We waited for them to get back down from the falls and told them that if they wanted to, we would bring them to the falls that we had mentioned.  They were more than a little excited when we offered this!  We spent the next hour with them, guiding them back to the hidden gems of waterfalls that were just down the road.  They boys all enjoyed getting into the falls, following Darrin's lead and walking right into water!  They all said it was really cold, except for Darrin - he said it was warmer than last year!  lol

 After the adventures at the falls, we headed back to check into the motel, change clothes and head into town for lunch.  Since our motel is only a short distance from town, it was a quick bike ride into town for lunch at "The Lunch Bag" - the awesome little cafe that we found at the end of our trip last year!  First place we stopped this year after checking into the the motel was the last place we visited last year!  Once again, we had great food and got some great ideas for places to visit all over the UP!

After lunch we stopped at the local winery so I could see what else new they might have, tasted some of their new creations and picked up a few bottles of wine.  As we were walking out the door, I spotted a brochure for the local frozen yogurt hot spot that was right down the road... so dessert was next!

By this time, we had put on a few miles riding around town, checking out the local waterfront park and were ready to head back to the motel. One of the places that the guys at The Lunch Bag told us about was a place the locals apparently call "Paradise"  It was a remote beach area just on the other side of Christmas.  So we figured we would see if we could find it.  Time for another adventure!

We found the road off the main highway without any issue and a few miles later we found the small dirt road.  This was definitely a typical Upper Michigan road - dirt, narrow and full of potholes!  We figured we were getting closer to the lake, but unfortunately with the rain the few days prior, the road ended up a little rougher that I was comfortable driving on so we ended up turning around.  Thankfully there was a small clearing there that we could turn around in - otherwise it would have been a long drive in reverse back to the other road!

Once we finally made it back to the main road it was smooth sailing back to the motel.  On the way back, it hit me.  We are on the shore of this massive, wonderful lake - I wanted FRESH fish for dinner.  We saw several signs for the local Elks fish fry and one other, but I didn't want some frozen, over processed, over cooked fish.  I wanted something that was swimming in the lake yesterday!  So, when we got back to the motel, we stopped at the front office to check with Pam and what she recommended.  She gave us the name of 3 different places, so we had a decision to make!

I did some research online.  One of the places was further out of town than we wanted to venture, the second was more of a supper club (and far dressier than any clothing options that we had with us!).  The 3rd was the steakhouse and bar that was on the corner where we had to turn when we were looking for "paradise" just an hour before. So we were off again!  Back to Christmas we go!

Foggy's did not disappoint!  From the outside, this steakhouse bar/grill looks like your typical small bar.  Nothing fancy on the inside but I was pleasantly surprised that it was not just a bar that served food.  The front half of the building was the bar and the back half the restaurant.  They even have a huge grill in the middle of the dining room where you can grill your own steaks!  You can read my full review of the restaurant here.  Fabulous food, great service and reasonable prices!

After that awesome dinner, we made out way back to the motel to relax and figure out our game plan for tomorrow.  Darrin opted to add and extra section of trail to our hike so we needed to figure out how early we needed to hit the trail so that we could get back in time for kick off of the Packers Pre-season game!  As we were sitting outside, enjoying the view of this amazing lake, we decided that we needed to get out and move a little!

We jumped in the car and made the 20 minute trek out to Miner Castle - another must stop each year that we are here.  We made it out there about a half hour before sunset and decided to stick around to see what kind pics we could get...  The scenery did not disappoint!  The colors in the sky were amazing - the pictures that we were able to get could not capture the true uber awesomeness of the fire in the sky!


When we finally made it back to the motel, we were beat!  We tried sitting outside to enjoy the calm quiet of the lake, but the mosquitoes were ready to dinner... and we didn't want to me the main course so we headed in and called it a night!

Day 1 total miles = 11

I leave you with a few images from Miners Castle...

Part 2 coming soon - we tackle 14 miles of pristine wilderness and cliffs!

50 Miles in one weekend? It will be a challenge, but we are going to try!

With back to school creeping up on us quickly and cooler fall days around the corner, it's time for the 4th annual mom/son weekend up in Michigan.  This weekend, Darrin and I are grabbing the bikes, hiking shoes (and running shoes of course!) and heading up to Munising to spend the weekend on the shore of Lake Superior.   Last years adventures can be found HERE (you might just have to scroll down to find the 4 day adventure)

  Over the years, on these trips, we have had the opportunity to explore so many areas of the Munising area, Kayaking around Grand Island one year and biking around the entire island the next, finding remote waterfalls, biking the Valley Spur bike trail and so much more.  This year, our goal is simple, between the hiking, biking and running, our goal is 50 miles.  Ok, maybe the goal itself is simple, but accomplishing it might be a bit trickier!

How are we going to accomplish this?

1.  When we arrive at our hotel, the bikes will come off the car and, aside from driving out to the remote trail heads for the hikes we are considering, we are walking, running or biking everywhere.  Our hotel is only about a mile or so from town, so when we head in for lunch/dinner, there is no need to take the car!  We are also only a short distance from several other local waterfalls, so bikes will be the main mode of transport.

2. Chapel Rock/Beach hike.  Last year we made a quick hike out to Chapel Rock and decided that this year we are planning ahead and doing the full loop and hitting Mosquito Beach and Falls.  Total - about 10 miles.

3.  Morning run!  This will mainly be me so that I can get a few more training miles in.  Distance yet to be determined each day.

Over the 3 days that we are gone, I will report our total miles for the day to my daily post!


Of course there will be the food adventures too!  When Darrin and I travel together, we have 3 food rules that we always try to follow:
1.  No chain restaurants - mom and pop/local places all the way!
2.  No restaurant that we have dined at before.
3.  If we do need to repeat a restaurant, we have to order something different.  This amendment helps when visiting small towns or when we have found a local hot spot that we really enjoy!

What are you doing this weekend to challenge yourself?

Lets to this thing!  (and here's to hoping the weather cooperates!)

Warrior Dash WI! If you don't get muddy, you are doing it wrong!

Mud, Sweat and Beer!  Get ready to get muddy!

Time once again for Warrior Dash WI!  This was the 3rd year that I conquered this crazy, muddy, awesome run.  This was a little different tho - I was facing these obstacles with John!  We knew that we would not be running the course and time was not even going to be a concern for us.  We were going to do this and  accomplish the beast of a course together!  John was not sure if he was going to be able to do all of the obstacles.  I reassured him that if there was something that he was not able to do, there were ways around most of the obstacles.

John and I Pre-race - i.e. No mud yet!

We could not have asked for better weather!  When we got to the Hunt Club where event is always held, the sun was shining!  This was a nice change from the storms and near flash floods from the night before!  Since we decided to leave from Madison early enough, we didn't have very long lines to wait in to pick up our packets and get ready to have some fun!

I knew that they made a few changes to the obstacles this year and from the finish line we were able to see the Collosus Slide that  they added to this years course... It looks A LOT higher than I thought it would be from the pictures! This is gonna be interesting!

Best part about this year (aside from running this with my husband!) was that we remembered to bring the rugged camera!  That shock-proof, water-proof camera was finally going to really come in handy!  In the several years that we have owned this camera, aside from a few trips out on the lake, it has not seen much action!  We were going to make up for that today!

The wall that I was not sure I was going to get over

We were only walking today and agreed that we were going to make a point to enjoy the morning and have as much fun as we can!  We spent the next hour and a half laughing, working together to get through, over and under everything that was in front of us!  At one point, John actually accidentally hit the button on the camera and actually took a video of himself falling into one of the mud pits.  I will have to see if I can get that posted out here - or at least put a link to it!

There were a few obstacles that we each thought that we were not going to be able to get through.  The biggest one for me was the Warrior Peak (pictured to the right).  I was not sure if I actually had the upper body/arm strength to pull this one off!  I am proud to say that not only did this obstacle NOT give me any trouble, but I almost ran right up the wall!  The worst part was actually getting over the top!  I am also happy to report that John also made it up an over on this one!

In the end, we may have taken our time, but we had a blast!  The Collosus slide at the end was awesome - the climb up to it, on the other hand was tough - but it was not going to stop up!  John is anxious to sign up again for next year too!  I also have a group of friends that have already said that they want to join us next year!

Here is to more fun to come guys!  I am working on getting pics from this year's Warrior Dash posted, so stay tuned for the link!!