This first weekend in March we decided to do a hike on Saturday and a bike ride on Sunday.  This short story is about the hike we did on Saturday March 4, 2006.  Pete and Bob joined me on this hike.  We drove out to Bloomer with the intent of just walking around the beautiful trails of Bloomer Park.   

I wasn’t sure if the trails were going to be icy so I brought along the ice spikes that I slip over my boots.  These ice spikes give you great traction on snow and ice.  Bob also had his ice spikes and Pete apparently still hasn’t purchased a pair yet so he was just wearing his hiking boots. 

We headed into the woods and Bob took the lead since he knows the trails in this park extremely well.  We walked down along the river which was flowing quite fast and the water levels were still very high.  Pete was impressed when we got down by the small water fall.  I have walked and jogged past this waterfall so many times I found it hard to believe that Pete had never seen it before today.  Because of Pete’s bad knee he doesn’t run with Bob and me, and when we visited Bloomer in the past with Pete we have ridden our bikes.  When we ride our bikes to Bloomer we typically stay on the safe upper level trails.  I was glad Pete got the opportunity to see the waterfall.  We stood around watching the water for a while just shooting the breeze.  One of the subjects we talked about was Pete’s theory on “Global Urban Warming”.  It is quite an interesting theory and maybe some day we can talk Pete into writing his theory down and I will post it on our web site. 

Once we started hiking again Bob led us into a brush filled area where we typically don’t go.  This day a lot of these areas were covered by ice from overflow water which had frozen with scattered trees sticking up out of the ice.  Pete commented it would be fun to ice skate in this area in amongst the trees.  The ice wasn’t real thick, just thick enough to support our weight.  We heard a few loud cracks as we walked along the ice.  It wouldn’t be much of a problem if we fell through the ice in the areas where the water was only a foot or so deep.  I got concerned a couple times when we were out sliding across a section of ice in an area where the water is typically 2 to 4 feet deep.  For the most part we were on the shallow areas, but we did press our luck a little on a couple deep sections.  Luckily none of us ever fell through and we all kept our feet dry. 

I used my phone to take a few pictures of Bob and Pete out on this hike.  I will post the pictures to the bottom of this story on this same page.  

The sun was out and the temperature wasn’t too bad, actually a very nice day for a hike.  I was surprised when we didn’t run across any deer this day.  Usually we stumble across at least one pack and sometimes more, but for what ever reason none this day.  Pete likes to talk as we all do on these activities and Pete’s voice tends to carry, so maybe the deer could hear Pete and they stayed a few steps ahead of us. 

We didn’t hike real far and we were only out at the park for about an hour, but this was enough time to relax and have a good time.  We did run across a few people also out walking and enjoying the day.  I think we were the only ones out at the park without a dog.  I think in general more dogs take advantage of our nice public parks than people, especially when you see so many people out walking multiple dogs at the same time. 

After our hike we decided to drive over to a new restaurant that opened in our area recently in the Target shopping center on Rochester Road.  The new place is called Famous Dave’s, but Bob has been calling it Crazy Dave’s, maybe this is a Freudian slip on how Bob really views me, I’m just kidding.  Bob and I drove separately from Pete because we had to go to Troy afterward and we didn’t want to force Pete to have to come with us.  Pete was complaining about Famous Dave’s before we even got there.  Pete said he doesn’t like barbequed food so the place didn’t sound good to him.  Bob and I talked Pete into trying it out so Pete went along.  Bob and I got there before Pete.  A waitress seated us and the place looked nice but there weren’t TVs everywhere like at Hamlin Pub.  We took a quick look at the menu and it was mostly barbequed food so we decided to leave.  Pete was just walking in while we were walking out.  We told him we changed our minds and we all agreed to go to our favorite place Hamlin Pub.  Before we went to the Pub we stopped in the Best Buy which is also in the Target shopping center.  Pete is still shopping for a big screen TV so we spent a few minutes looking at the rear projection, plasma and LCD TVs on display at Best Buy.  

After Best Buy is was direct to Hamlin Pub where we had one of our typical outstanding lunches. 
David Lindquist