09-01-06 @ 6:50 am EDT

All right...I'm cold and tired and don't feel like writing today, but I'm never going to get this thing done otherwise... >_<

When I left off, I'd just reached British Landing, the rough midway point of my walking around. (I was going to say "journey," but that just sounds stupid.) British Landing can be summed up in one word of significance: RESTROOMS!

I passed the Cannonball, which is like some sort of historic concession stand or something, and used the public restrooms, then came back out and went to get a drink of water from the drinking fountain. It operates via a pedal rather than a push button and using it was just like when I used that one at Arch Rock last year--it first let out this hideous gurgling, sucking, booming noise like it was dredging up water from hundreds of feet under the island itself. O_o I was thirsty though so I didn't care. I stood drinking it while a woman approached and stood nearby watching me apprehensively; when I at last finished, water still running down my chin (drinking fountains are irritating), she asked, "Is it fresh? Or does it taste like iron...?"

"It does taste a little metallic," I admitted.

"All right," she said, turning away, "I'll wait then."

I went down to the lakeshore and took a zoom shot of the Mackinac Bridge (didn't turn out that bad), but refrained from stepping into the water, as I'd really wanted to do. I figured I would wait until I reached the east shore before doing that. Note to island visitors, step in the water while you're on the west shore. *sigh* While I was here there was a group of Mennonites or something, at least six or eight--they look kind of Amish but aren't, and I've seen a few in Cheboygan now and then, they drive trucks and visit stores but the older men all wear beards and suspenders, the young men dress well and always carry backpacks, and the women all wear pastel dresses and bonnets--I have no real clue what they are. Anyway there were some of these at British Landing, some bearded men and bonneted women, all riding tandem bikes and having the time of their lives. I headed back to British Landing Road, this time passing State Road and heading on again toward the middle of the island.

British Landing Road, as I recalled it from my last time along it a couple of years ago or so, is nice and scenic, and I would have taken more shots had there not been HORSE POOP everywhere. (I'm keeping uploading some of these to DeviantArt in mind and it would hardly do to have a nice scenic shot with horse poop in the road!) It's more evergreen trees out here than deciduous, so it was nice and green despite the drought that had sorely affected State Road. I passed a little rest area on the right and meandered in to take a look but ended up kind of perplexed because I saw cattails and there was a sort of clearing with tall grass which I couldn't see into, and trees on the other side. There was one of the omnipresent park signs here but it had long ago fallen off its stand and was nowhere to be found. (They REALLY need to replace those things. The ones at Cave of the Woods, Crack-in-the-Island, and Skull Cave are in woeful need of repair.) The only other sign was tips on taking nature photos. O_o So I had no clue what this place was. It looked like a watery area though so I honestly wondered, was this Croghan Water?? I had visited Croghan Water from the other direction a couple of years or so ago--it's a little waterhole which according to some sources is fed by a spring and according to others is just rain fed and dries up at times; I opt for the spring idea myself, in my writing. Of course, my Croghan Water is also nearly bottomless and home to giant caves which lead to strange underground wolves and...anyway, I'd visited it from the other side the last time I was in the area, and had had no clue there was any other way to approach it. But I couldn't tell if this was it because all I could see was tall grass. According to my map, Croghan Water was in this general area, so I'm guessing that was it, and I'd come out on the other side of it. Huh. Go figure. I took a picture--though all you can see is grass and trees and a funky stump--and went on my way.

There were all sorts of lovely hollows and pits and weirdly twisting cedar trees along this road. I at last came to a side trail which I'd taken photos of years ago and realized it was Lydia Trail; I attempted the same shot that I'd taken back then, but it doesn't look as inviting, which is weird because those old photos were on our junky old 1 megapixel Polaroid which never registered colors right. :/ Oh well. I had to ascend a hilly section early on, which nearly killed me, but as the road leveled out I could relax a little again and regained a bit of my earlier enthusiasm for walking, despite my exhaustion and aching knee. I at last entered a landscape with fewer cedars, where the trees opened up some and peeps of a grassy green area began to emerge on the right. This was Wawashkamo Golf Course, the site of the old Battlefield of 1814. I planned to pause here to take a little loop that went around and came back out onto the road, but I was exhausted and didn't know if it was even there. There were several little benches on the left around the Battlefield memorial to the fallen soldiers and I limped my way over there to at last sit down and rest.

"The Battlefield looks like a golf course!" a tourist exclaimed sarcastically as she went by, and a companion of hers said, "Ha ha."

I pulled out my map to look it over. I'd had plans of taking Leslie Avenue along the East Bluff, but by now that plan was really making me cringe. You see, Leslie Avenue looks like an epileptic snake. It goes BACK AND FORTH and BACK AND FORTH and BACK AND FORTH. It is the friggingest most MEANDERING path on the whole island. And it's LONG. It starts not far from Four Corners, heads to the East Bluff, and then continues all the way to Arch Rock. There was no way I could tolerate that now. I took only PART of it last year and nearly died. x_x So I looked at the map and tried to think of the quickest way to Arch Rock, because damn it, I WAS going to get down to the east shore this year. And Ma wasn't due to get out of work for several hours yet so I could hardly head back to town anyway. I decided at last that I would keep heading the way I was going and use Garrison Road again to pass by the cemeteries, go by Skull Cave, and take Rifle Range Road to the Arch. That would be a lot shorter. So I decided that was my new plan. *sigh*

I looked up and saw a lot of seagulls wheeling far overhead; hm. I took a few shots of those and then achingly got to my feet, slipped my pack back on, and headed back to the road. I found the looping trail but it seemed to lead to a gate that was shut, so I bypassed that and kept going. *shrug* Couldn't have been terribly impressive anyway...

I took lots of nice shots of trees (as my camera attests) and came once more to Ste. Anne's Cemetery. The first time I'd been here I'd seen a bottle of water sitting abandoned on the stone wall around the cemetery; well guess what was still there. Hm. :/ I was actually tempted to grab it and run. *shrug* I had to pass between this and the Post Cemetery and so headed left; there was some kind of groundskeeper or something driving a noisy vehicle around the place. I paused briefly at the Post Cemetery and then reached Skull Cave. It's still fenced off, of course. I ignored it aside from one distant shot and turned onto Rifle Range Road, passing Watch-Your-Step Trail which leads way up to Fort Holmes--just looking at those stairs made me grimace--and entered an area of thick shady woods which was a lot gloomier and different from British Landing Road.

Along the way I came to an unmarked side trail and drew to a halt, thinking. I stepped in and went along it a little way; it was nice and secluded, and didn't even have a sign to mark it. I wondered. Might this be a good place to leave my second box? I'd wanted to leave it in one of the hollows so numerous along Leslie Avenue, but I wasn't going that way now; so I figured, this was as good a place as any! Even the popular trails on this side of the island seemed mysterious and abandoned and I had to keep reminding myself of how well traveled they were just to keep myself from putting the box in any old place. There was a section of rotting log here with a space under it, just big enough for my box, and I bent down (painfully) to nudge it inside. I took a picture even though out of context I'd have no clue where it is; a later look at my map made me think that this might have been the former North Bicycle Trail, however. (I also just noticed how very close the Forest King was to me, if I'd just gone a bit in the opposite direction. Fooey.) I thought I heard someone approaching so I quickly slipped my pack back on and went on my way. Oddly, I kept thinking I was still on Garrison Road and kept wondering where the hell I was going, and had to repeatedly remind myself this was Rifle Range Road. Ugh.

Rifle Range Road was nice and winding and gloomy, but I was still happy to reach Arch Rock with its restrooms and tour carriages and drinking fountain and whatnot. I didn't take any photos of the Arch, ha ha. ^_^ Though I did get a few of the lake, and a shot of a tour carriage that looks almost exactly like a shot I took back in the Nineties, I believe. It's always wet here for some reason; they must hose down the pavement. *shrug* There was a Fort Mackinac sign here (???) with a seagull perched atop it; nobody seemed to notice it except me, and at one point I drew close to the sign and just stared up at it in a way that seemed to make it nervous, ha ha. I went to the bathroom, and got a drink from the fountain (oddly, it wasn't as scary sounding as it had been the last time, nor as the British Landing one had been), before taking a deep breath and turning about to locate...Spring Trail. *cue ominous music*

Spring Trail, you see, is a quite short but very, VERY steep stepped trail which heads down the East Bluff and comes out next to Dwightwood Spring. It was the only quick way down to the shore. I recall going down this trail only once in the past and it was SCARY. I wasn't really looking forward to taking it again, but had no choice. I figured it would be practically empty because everybody else would be taking the easier trails, right? WRONG. When I first got to it I had to wait for a neverending group of idiotic KIDS to make their way up, because of course kids always run and jump on that trail and hog the entire thing, making it INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS. I'm serious, this thing is like a set of old stairs with stone bluff on the right and a rickety leaning wooden railing along the left and beyond the railing it goes STRAIGHT DOWN. There's room only for two people abreast, but when you're like me, YOU WANT NOBODY FRIGGING NEAR YOU. And I of course had to monopolize the rail myself, even though I wish they'd had a rail on the right side too since I don't feel safe clinging to things on my left side, and clinging to the rail meant I had to be even closer to the cliff!! >_<

I started on my way down, very slowly and shakily. Every so often more fudgies would make their way up and I'd pause to let them go past because I couldn't bear the thought of us all moving at once. I did find the curious rock formations along the right side interesting, though, and occasionally stopped to take pictures, though this was hurried because tourists were always coming along. I assume most of them were on their way from the shore to Arch Rock because most of the other people on Spring Trail seemed to consist of people heading upwards and regretting it. Young, fit people kept passing me, trudging and wheezing for breath, though there were still several kids who insisted on RUNNING which just made me want to shove them over the edge. >_< Okay, not really. But HELLO, STEEP TRAIL, ACROPHOBIC PERSON, SLOW THE HELL DOWN, WOULD YOU? Morons! What's it take to get them to climb safely, a fifty-foot fall??

I spotted an area where the railing had apparently broken and been shabbily mended by merely nailing another piece of wood to it, and this was supported quite flimsily against a nearby tree with a thin wooden post. x_x Cripes!! Could they have not at least made it LOOK convincing??

Nearing the bottom, I spotted a large boulder on the right and had to pause to photograph it because I believe that, in my old Nineties photos of the island, I have a shot of Ma standing near this same rock. There was also a state park sign about the "Cliffs of Mackinac," and a tree with REMARKABLY twisty roots--I bet that would make an interesting stock picture. The shore road was at last in sight with people on bicycles and foot going back and forth, and I clung tightly to the railing on the last few steps down, my acrophobia dying slowly away as I at last reached the bottom. Thank God!! _-_ The trail wouldn't be half so bad if not for the STUPID MORON KIDS WITH NO SAFETY SENSE.