A really good walk

Last night a thunderstorm woke me up.  Or maybe it was Miss Sadie, shoving her nose under the covers.  She does not like thunderstorms.  Well nuts, I thought.  This is going to make for a gloomy little 5k.  But what the heck.  I patted a corner of the bed for Miss Sadie, rolled over, and went back to sleep.  This morning I woke up again—thank goodness, at my advanced age you can never be sure of these things—and it was foggy.  Then it rained.  Then the sun came out, and emails came in from various quarters, and the next thing you know, there we were, assembling at the Day Park.

Eight people (Katherine is not in the picture because she was taking this one, try to keep up) and three dogs is a pretty good turnout in the Township.  More than turned out for the last Township Board meeting I’ll bet.  That’s Torch Lake in the background, all turquoise and fresh with mist rolling off the surface.  We walked down to the boat ramp just to keep things honest, then turned and headed up the road to the Torch Bay Nature Preserve.  The wind off Torch was cold, but over on the Bay it was nice and warm.  It was a great day for finding Petoskey stones.  Babs had invited an old friend up for the weekend.  Jeannine found a fine example.

Babs herself was uncharacteristically carrying a Little Camera.  She had come to walk, and maybe to take a picture or two while she was at it.

Once down on the beach at the Nature Preserve, we turned north and walked along the shore.  The dogs were out in the water, up and down the beach, over the dunes, spin-dancing and trotting along.  Miss Sadie and the Cowboy like Brewster a lot.  Brewster liked finding logs he could carry down the beach.  Logs almost as big as he is.

As our little party headed north, I lagged a bit, distracted as always.  There was, for example, this fine lichen world on a stump.

No, really, it was amazing.  Looky here.  I never knew lichen could be like this, did you?  (OK, everyone except Amy-Lynn and Sybil, nothing surprises you two.)

OK, so from the Torch Lake boat ramp to the Nature Preserve beach is a mile, and we went up the shore about a half mile . . . OK, a quarter mile . . . and then back to the point of beginning and we called it good.  I don’t believe a single one of us had a pedometer.  On the other hand, no one got lost.

As promised, we saw woodpecker holes.  And those of us who did not have to hare off to watch the Masters sat on a bench at the Day Park and ate walnuts and dried cherries and wasabi peas and dog treats, according to proclivities.  (I, of all people, messed up on the excellent treats.  There’s an explanation but no excuse, and it’s not pretty anyway so we’re not going there.)

There are more photos coming, but it is thundering like crazy again, and I may or may not be able to post them this evening.  I hope everyone who made the WWWP5k today had as pleasant company as we did, and saw as much loveliness.  I hope I can get this posted before the power goes out . . .