A Fungusamungus

A what? A mushroom to be exact---we saw LOTS of mushrooms on a hike today. We wanted to go exploring Eldy's old snowmobile stompin' grounds that he remembered from 30 years ago...we explored by car for quite a while today on old 94, on highway 13, and other areas. We found an excellent restaurant that Eldy remembered from years ago called the Camel Rider. You had to go into back roads in the national forest on the way to get there. By the composition of the roads, you think you are going into the backwoods, going to nowhere, or to somebody's rustic cabin with the outhouse outside, it's THAT rustic!  DEEP into the backwoods where there's BAR (that's Yooper talk for bear--naw, just kidding!) But you would be correct on one thing--you are in the deep backwoods of God's country. The foliage on the trees was breathtaking, all the way there and back. (If you've always longed to go to Vermont, and it's too far, we'd say the U.P. in late September has to be right up there (haha) with New England's fall display. At any rate, the restaurant is only open on Fridays and Saturdays so we're saving that one for later this week to see if the food is as good as he remembers it.

colors of the woods at Colwell Lake

Coming back we hiked 2 miles around Colwell Lake, a gorgeous lake surrounded by trees of scarlet, fiery orange and yellow color, and umpteen different kinds of mushrooms. It was a beautiful hike along a packed cinder trail, so easy hike for us. Eldy was actually disappointed it was only two miles! There is a campground there with sites and four of the sites have electric hookup--about the only national forest campground in Michigan with electric AND roomy enough for us to park a 40 foot RV. We are going to stay there Friday night. We can stay with a senior park pass discount for ten dollars! (electric only)  After we got done with our hike, we went looking for another tavern Eldy remembered that had an old wooden Indian down in the basement. The tavern was called Jack Pines, a small cabin bar and restaurant. The wooden Indian had his own name--Elija, or something like that. Well, Elija has to stay in the basement because he has something that parents don't want their children to see. If you pull Elija's arm down, something else pops up out of the blanket...and it's big enough that in the old days, Eldy remembers the women would shriek in shock at the sight of it. Well, we found the 80 year old restaurant, and we found the equally old wooden Indian down in the basement of the tavern. The tavern has been remodeled, it looks really nice and lodge like inside.  The Indian has been through so many repairs, that we didn't dare pull his arm. After all, he's almost as old as the restaurant! We just peeked under the blanket. Yup! It's still there! Eldy wouldn't let me put the photo on the blog, but here's the next best photo. You'll just have to use your imagination! Tomorrow, out for another hiking or biking trail. We saw one today called Bruno's Run along Moccasin Lake, we might try that one, it's only 10 miles ("WHAT??!!!" says Eldy)...but that is only one of many, many beautiful trails in this area to explore in what we feel is the best season in the U.P.--fall! No mosquitoes, and no black flies AND stunning fall foliage!