Vacationland pt. 3

It was eleven thousand degrees the other day. You can check, go to the weather.com site of your choice and look up "Upper Peninsula" and it will say "High of 11,000, low of 85,00. Partly cloudy, chance of scattered showers".

So of course I went for a hike. Through the woods. I was dressed for the job - shorts, tee shirt, cute sneakers. By the time I was half way down the street it turned out that it was an optical allusion. I was really wearing a head to toe rubber cat suit and cute sneakers. It was a little humid.

I don't see the point of going on twenty mile hikes just to be able to say I went on a twenty mile hike. One is braggery and another its an exercise in exercise. If you want to walk twenty miles on a regular bases, stay home and buy a tread mill. Vacation isn't not mean to be endured.

When I go for a hike, I look for the road less traveled or a deer path, whatever is better marked. So I started out. I kind of knew where I was going and what I wanted to see when I got there - i.e something lovely and photogenic and with a USB plug.

I know that nice hikers stay on the trail and it is very bad to go off trail - but if they really wanted you to stay on the trail they would arrange for something interesting to be on the trail. Sadly, the longer the trail is the trail the less likely anything interesting is to be near it. Anything interesting along the trail has long moved off the trail.

I had a thought after I spent two hours crouched in black mud taking photos of a 15 foot stretch of creek (I got some great shots, sneakers no longer as cute). It was huge fun for me, but in general I doubt anyone else would think so. I decided that I should be less judgemental of people who think twenty mile hikes are huge fun.

(edited to edit)