Manistee River Trail

Over the weekend Hubbs and I went to the west side of Michigan to hike the Manistee River Trail with Andrew's half-brother Jason, and his half-brother Steve. It's a 20 mile loop so we packed up our sleeping bags, tents, food and were off.

If we are going to be serious backpackers someday, we might need to invest in smaller sleeping bags, my sleeping bag took up the entire inside compartment of my backpack!

pretty views

the hikers

The first day we hiked 13+ miles. The last couple miles were pretty grueling. But we finally made it to our campsite, set up camp, and had some 'dinner' aka pouch of tuna and a bagel. We met some people from the Sierra Club and sat around the campfire chit chatting with them, it was nice.

The night wasn't so great. We went to bed around 10pm, and instantly someone who will remain nameless in our party started snoring. Loud. I know I am a light sleeper, and I usually pack earplugs. But I forgot them. I kept trying to sleep, but by 2am, still awake, I woke up Hubbs and had him get up and help me drag our tent 100 yards away. He wasn't very happy, but after we did that I could finally sleep. It was pretty cold though, high 30s, and the ground was pretty hard, but better than laying awake all night.

The next day we packed up, ate some breakfast, aka another bagel, and were on our way.

Day 2 seemed much harder. We had 7 miles to go to get back to the parking lot.

A suicide attempt was contemplated (j/k - Hubbs said that wasn't funny)

But we finally made it. We piled into the Jeep and Steve drove us back to Jason's house. Poor Steve, well all fell asleep instantly and he had to drive. When we got back we all stumbled out of the Jeep, our legs had stiffened so much and my feet had swollen so that I was hobbling. Ouch! Then Hubbs and I made our way home. We stopped somewhere and got delicious pizza

Came home, showered, and went to bed!

My mom had asked me to check out Manistee and tell them if I thought they should retire there. I had to call her this morning and tell her 'no'. It is beautiful, but I can't believe they'd want to leave their only child that didn't move out of state, and I want the future free babysitting! It wouldn't help to have to drive 4 hours for it :)

Manistee on Dwellable