Because I am sure you’ve been waiting with bated breath to hear whether Kayak Woman was successful in her mission to find tights, I am here to tell you that she DID and she found them at the Gaylord Woldemort. Nowadays it is hard for KW to buy tights under duress in an actual bricks-and-mortar store.

The only form factor Woldemort had that looked like it would be OPAQUE enough to actually provide a layer of warmth was also labeled “shape wear”, which is not her fave. Nevertheless, she persisted and, after carefully studying the size chart, bought four pair in black, the only color, crossing her fingers as she inserted her card into the self check-out musheen. The tights fit just fine and KW did not feel like she was being squeezed by a vise (whew).

Of course our final destination was Tahquamenon Falls for our annual meetup with our North Country Trail buddies – folks from two (count ’em) chapters of that organization showed up this year and we rented both lodges to accommodate everyone.

My first experience on my new snowshoes (Friday afternoon) was not very successful and I ended it when I fell. Oh don’t worry, it was not a spectacular or catastrophic fall, just kind of a slow collapse into deep snow. I was on new (unfamiliar) snowshoes and NOT on any kind of trail and the snow was kind of icy/slippery (not my fave), and there was a snuffleupagus RIGHT ON MY TAIL! And I think I stepped into a “hole”. I decided to bag it and headed back to the lodge to put my lasagnas and garlic bread together. I ENJOYED being space-ified for a couple hours.

I felt discouraged after Friday’s aborted hike but Saturday was much better and I did four good fast miles. Although I was with a large group of people, I was able to separate myself from everyone (including the snuffleupagus, who was off with one of his girlfriends 🐸) and managed to regain my “snowfeet”. We had lunch at the falls brewery that afternoon, then everyone met up for chili, etc., at our lodge (the larger one). I bagged the lantern trail that night by proclaiming introvertia. I knew that I would want to return to the lodge before the Twinz of Terror did and they would be all “Oh, just a few more minutes”, and then proceed to talk up prospective hikers/trailer maintainers for the next half hour. Nope. It was okay, a few others stayed “home” too.

People were all over the map about what to do yesterday and I wasn’t crazy about either plan. I mean, one of them was to hike the trail between the lower and upper falls, which is difficult even in the summer nowadays and I won’t even begin to try to describe what it’s probably like during the winter. Rumor was that the steep uphills had to be more or less climbed and “ice” was mentioned. Nope. I ended up totally doing my own thing, which included walking down the 94 steps to the upper falls (in the pic). I have been there umpteen gazillion times in my life but yesterday I enjoyed that it was almost deserted. That is rare in this day and age. And no one ended up doing the dangerous hike between the falls with the ice climbing, etc.

A lot of people left yesterday (Sunday) and the tentative plan was for the remaining seven to meet in our lodge to eat leftovers for dinner last night. Around mid-afternoon Pat and I looked at each other and one of us said “brewery” and the other said “Yes!”. That’s what we ended up doing and that was a GOOD idea because it allowed us to empty and clean the kitchen last night, making it MUCH EASIER to get outta dodge this morning.

It was snowing to beat the band during dinner last night and I was my usual Nervous Nelly about what our drive would be like today. I hadn’t looked at any kind of weather forecast since something like Friday morning. Snow in the UP? Kinda okay. Snow all the way down to The Planet Ann Arbor? Nope. When I went to bed last night, I looked out the window and there was the BRILLIANT waning gibbous moon. A good omen in a clear sky.

Indeed the driving was decent today. I endured Patriot Radio almost the entire time (except I did some squeaking when somebody put Kellyanne Conway on, jeebus). This was juxtaposed with the current re-read I am doing of Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed. More on that whole Patriot Radio thing some other day. Maybe.

Back home. Cubelandia tomorrow. Hi Ho!

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