Mark C. and I rode the pre-Memorial Day ride at Island Lake this past Thursday. Mother Nature served up some nice weather and the trail was in great condition. Surprisingly there weren’t as many riders as usual in the parking lot. The holiday weekend is probably the reason for the reduction. No gripes here though. Less traffic on the trails is a good thing. No falls to report. The controlled fire area that was there last month on the long loop is now a sweet field of some purple flower plants. I’m sorry I didn’t bring the camera. Pretty sweet visual.The grill was in attendance for the post ride. Good polish sausage to add back some calories that may have been lost during the ride. Add that to the three or so liquid pork chops and I pretty much gained some poundage during this ride. Oh well, Memorial Day weekend is what that is for.
From the park, it was over to Jim M.’s house for some Piston playoff basketball viewing. Jim was a bachelor for the weekend in that his lovely and talented one went to visit her family in Greene, NY. The Pistons played ugly, as did the Cavaliers, but we’ll take an ugly victory any day. I see the Pistons taking it in five as I thought they could have had the Sunday game but Lebron had his A-game in the 4th quarter. I don’t expect Chauncey and Rip to play that bad again. Run, Rip, run.
On a non-riding note, it was a great holiday weekend. I went up to the Roth family cottage on Higgins Lake. What a beautiful lake that is. The Roth’s cottage is on land owned by the American Legion around the northwest end of the lake. Each cluster of cottages is owned by a different city’s legion group which was pretty cool. The Roths are part of the Breckenridge chapter. Near their place were the Alma, Blanchard, Mt. Pleasant, and even the Royal Oak chapters. Quite a few cottages packed in within the area but each group/chapter seem to be like a family. The mission for the weekend was to clean up around the place (no winter time here) and put in the dock for the eight or so cottages that share it. This is not just your basic 10-20 foot dock. Because the lake is so shallow, the dock extends out probably around 40 or so yards with about eight boat hoists mixed in. The cottage owners have done this process for years so I just waited for direction on what they needed from me. The Roth family let me use some spare waders they had but the only problem is the boots were about three sizes too small. I could have gotten them all the way on but would have had to cut them off in removing them. I wore them with half of my feet in the boots and boy did they hurt. There was no visible crying though. The whole operation took a couple of hours and went pretty smooth for the most part.
I brought my fishing pole but didn’t have an opportunity to rip any lips. The locals tell me that the lake trout and rock bass (boooo!) seem to be the fish that are caught most in the area. As noted, the lake is shallow for quite awhile from shore and there isn’t much on the structure side for fish to migrate so my guess is that you might be here awhile if you are looking for the trophy fish. I could be wrong though.
I saw some great local flavor at the watering hole, The Silver Dollar Saloon. Quite an original name, eh? I saw a girl with a Playboy shirt and another with a Hustler shirt on. I got caught looking too much though. Bummer. The band (name?) played all of the cover tunes and actually weren’t too bad.
Memorial Day was spent honoring my freedom with a motorcycle ride to where my family cottage used to be, Kingsville, Ontario. Route 20 and Route 50 around the edge of Lake Erie is a beautiful ride with minimal traffic. The road could probably use some TLC in that some parts are a bit broken up but overall, a great ride. I stopped in to my old neighbors, the W. family. Judy W., her daughter Jennifer, and a friend of theirs were chilling on the deck and as they always are, were more than hospitable in greeting and entertaining a weary (and thirsty) traveler. Our former cottage was looking pretty much how we left it. I sure miss that place.
That is all for now. We’re riding at Brighton this Thursday but the location may change. Go Pistons and get healthy Tigers.
Trail Head
