{"id":209667,"date":"2014-10-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/?p=209667"},"modified":"2014-10-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-12T00:00:00","slug":"a-perfect-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/?p=209667","title":{"rendered":"A Perfect Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was a 9.1 mile walk in just over three hours along paved country roads.\u00a0 Two point six miles was on the White Pine Trail.\u00a0 It was a perfect Michigan autumn day with the temperature at 65, brilliant sunshine with not a cloud on the horizon.\u00a0 The oaks were just starting to get a tinge of color while the maples were just shy of being at their peak.<\/span> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I started at the intersection of the White Pines Trail (An old rail bed converted into an asphalt bicycle and walking trail) and the no longer existing town of Edgerton on 13 Mile, four and a half miles East of Sparta.\u00a0 I walked North and East ending at the Kent County Long Lake Park off M-46.\u00a0 There was nothing special about today, yet everything was spectacular.\u00a0 The silence was penetrating, the color was mesmerizing, the sky brilliant.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Strange Sights are not uncommon.\u00a0 Here was one.\u00a0 Along the road, in front of a home set way off the road was a boat.\u00a0 It hung in the air about ten feet off the ground with a dummy sitting in it with a fishing pole.\u00a0 As I stopped and looked a car approached, slowed, went passed, and stopped.\u00a0 As I paused he turned around, came slowly back, and then turned into the drive, slowed down even more, and watched me looking at this strange piece of artistic expression, smiled, waved, and went up his drive.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Several miles further I came to a farm house with two young teenagers with leaf blowing machines strapped to their backs creating an awful howling noise heard for several hundred meters.\u00a0 With more than 90% of the leaves still on the 10 Sugar Maples trees they were blowing every single leaf off their yard.\u00a0 I stopped, pointed to the trees, and said, \u201cYou have a long way to go!\u201d\u00a0 He shrugged, and said, \u201cYes, I know.\u201d\u00a0 It must be some kind of punishment.\u00a0 I cannot imagine them doing this for the next six weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I turned on to the White Pine Trail I saw a 14 inch snake, thin as a pencil.\u00a0 I nudged him along so he would not be rode over by the racing bicycles.\u00a0 He was delighted to get into the grass after I had a good look at him.\u00a0 Three yards further on, I found another, only eight inches or so.\u00a0 It made me wonder where the nest was.<\/span><\/p>\n

Milk weed seed was popping out with the wind catching the cotton type filaments attached to the seed.\u00a0 Road side trees were largely Red and White Oak, Weeping Willow, Maple, Sassafras, Walnut, Poison Sumac, Hardy Catalpa, Norway and Blue Spruce, Australian, Scotch, and White Pine, among others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s walk was worth several visits to a counselor.\u00a0 I am ready for another week.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was a 9.1 mile walk in just over three hours along paved country roads.\u00a0 Two point six miles was on the White Pine Trail.\u00a0 It was a perfect Michigan autumn day with the temperature at 65, brilliant sunshine with not a cloud on the horizon.\u00a0 The oaks were just starting to get a tinge …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":209668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_block_theme_hide_title":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-209667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-founders-corner","tag-hiking","with-featured-image"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/A-Perfect-Day.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/A-Perfect-Day.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Lou Haveman","author_link":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/?author=5"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/209668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/louhaveman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}