About a week ago @mrsbozz realized we finally had a weekend where we didn't have much going on, so she made the suggestion that we take a drive on Saturday and maybe visit some areas of the state we haven't seen before. After a recent rain and wind storm, I knew the colors on the tree were going to be pretty lackluster, but I always love a good road trip with my wife, so I was down.
She found a site that had some interesting places to visit, so I picked one of them and then mapped out some other activities for us to do on the way back.
That's what led us to the Wadhams to Avoca Trail
This trail covers the 12 mile distance between the towns of Wadhams and Avoca Michigan (hence the name). It follows the route of an old rail line that was formerly owned by the famed CSX Company. As the website I mentioned above states, the highlight of the trail is the 640 foot long Mill Creek Trestle. It's an old bridge that spans the Mill Creek and has been converted to a walking trail.
After the nearly two hour drive, it was about 40 to 45 degrees F when we got to the parking lot at around 10 AM. Given the cold, we didn't attempt to walk the whole trail. Instead, we parked a little over a half mile away from the bridge and walked the distance across the bridge and back. It ended being about a mile and a half when we were finished.
The path is really well maintained and we came across a fair number of people enjoying it while we were on our walk.
Thankfully, by the time we got to the bridge, the foot traffic had cleared out quite a bit and we had an unobstructed opportunity for some photos. I'm not sure how tall the bridge is, but you can see from the opening photo, it isn't low. Despite the title of this post. I was referring more to the fact that we didn't get much of a fall this year. The leaves turned and fell within a day or two and at the end of this post you will see what came next.
My wife who is a licensed master social worker was impressed by the sign urging people to contact the suicide prevention and crisis helpline versus taking the plunge off the side of the bridge. Even with the fencing, it wouldn't be too hard to make an attempt if you really wanted to.
It would have been cool to wander through the brush down to the bottom of the bridge to get a shot from underneath, but it was cold and we needed to keep moving. The photo above that I got looking down is the best you get. It did offer some scenic views, and I can't help but think how pretty it must be in the summer when everything is green or in the fall when the colors on the trees are in full effect. Unfortunately, we got this kind of drab late fall blah, but I am still glad we made the visit.
Who knows, maybe we will come back again some day when the conditions are better.
After leaving the rail trail, we headed to the nearby town of Lapeer, MI to visit a small used bookstore called The Neverending Story. They had a huge selection, but many of the books were quite old. I was a bit at a loss about what to pick, so I didn't buy any books, but @mrsbozz picked up a couple for herself.
There was a sweet old lady running the store and she was very nice if not a little chatty for my taste :)
I really enjoyed The Wheel of Time show on Amazon Prime before they cancelled it, but I have never read the books. I heard they are much better than the show, so I have been searching for some used copies to get started. I think there are something like 15 books in the series and I was kind of annoyed to find this place didn't have any of them except the last book...
We left Lapeer and headed to another nearby city called Davison to visit another book store. This one was called "Turn the Page" and while quite a bit smaller than the other one, they had a much better selection of newer books. They had the first book of the Wheel of Time, and the second book, so I got both of those, and @mrsbozz got a couple more for herself.
We stopped on got a quick lunch on our way home and pulled back into our driveway around 3:00 PM. We quickly worked together to get the leaves up off the front yard because we heard snow was coming later that day.
Sure enough, Sunday morning we woke up to this, the first snow of the 2025/2026 season. It continued to snow all day and if the ground hadn't been so warm and the temperatures had been a little colder I think we would have gotten a good six inches of accumulation. Thanks in part to a lake effect system that was sitting off the coast over Lake Huron. It was just churning away sending squall after squall of snow back over our area.
I expect by the end of the day today the majority of the snow will be long gone, but this likely isn't the last time we will see the white stuff this year. Despite the fact that we still have over a month left of Autumn, it feels like it is long gone already and we are already in the clutches of Winter.
My Sports Account - @bozz.sports
Come hang out in The Pub
Looks like a nice hiking trail!
I'd recommend against getting into the books. The first book is fantastic. The second and third only a little less good. Unfortunately from there it's all downhill. Jordan just introduces subplot after subplot and never finishes any of them. Kind of like Game of Thrones. He finally died with it incomplete and a complete mess. Another much better writer came in and tied up the series quickly. Jordan's problem was that the first three books were tightly edited. But then he married his editor and she stopped editing him. So if you get into it, stop after just the first few or you'll be sorry.
Is there at least some kind of completion with the first three so I won't feel like I am left hanging?
There is a little. I mean he keeps the thread going, but all three of the first books have a satisfying ending for the main story of the book. Future books would lose that. Actually my favorite book was the second. The ending of that one was epic, better than the first, and made us feel like the conclusion was short at hand. Too bad the third book immediately walks us back from what the ending of the second suggests. If you did want to get into the series, I'd suggest at least the first two, possibly the third if you are enjoying yourself. From that point you might be better to just read the Wikipedia summery.
Okay thanks! I have the first three and I have a feeling it will take me a long time to get through all of those!
Your reply is upvoted by @topcomment; a manual curation service that rewards meaningful and engaging comments.
More Info - Support us! - Reports - Discord Channel
Wooden bridges are great but goodness me they can get slippy at times.
That first shot is gorgeous with those clouds! A great wee trip!
Thanks, I appreciate that! This one was not too bad, but I did notice a lot of screws. Like they had recently done some repairs.
Hehe well it's better they did those repairs than not!
For sure;
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:u37t33dyaufvrqujwmvm54ln/post/3m5bmvs33g22y
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:u37t33dyaufvrqujwmvm54ln/post/3m5bmvs33g22y
The rewards earned on this comment will go to the author of the blog post.
You can check out this post and your own profile on the map. Be part of the Worldmappin Community and join our Discord Channel to get in touch with other travelers, ask questions or just be updated on our latest features.
You received an upvote of 100% from Precious the Silver Mermaid!
Please remember to contribute great content to the #SilverGoldStackers tag to create another Precious Gem.
Nice walk you guys put in on the road trip. Too bad the leaves are pretty much gone, but still pretty. It's a nice thought the put the suicide prevention sign on the bridge, not that it's high enough to be a very good spot to leap from, but I suppose most people don't think before they jump...
Cool little bookshop you found and a nice little town.
Eventually that white ice blanket falls from the sky, nice that you were home watching football while it did. I hope the weekend was nice overall and you got to get in some nice relexation!
I think if you landed right you would probably get the result you wanted. It's quite high at the center. We were walking and the land on either side of the path was pretty even, I told my wife it needed to start dropping pretty drastically for the view to be like what we saw in the photo. Turns out, it did. I'd guess it was probably a good 300 to 400 feet up.
Anything over seventy feet is likely to do the job, so three or four hundred feet, I can see why they put the signs up there now!
I was way off. I looked it up. It's 60 feet high.
@bozz gracias por compartir el paseo, las fotos están hermosas. Exito
A beautiful and peaceful place😍 I would like to spend my weekend in this kind of place where I can relax and enjoy nature. I like snow too. I haven't seen it in my real life. I think it's more beautiful than the picture 😃😃
Snow can be quite beautiful, especially if you don't have anywhere you need to be. If you have to drive in it, that is a totally different story!
Oh, everything has some advantages and disadvantages
Snow already!!!Gorgeous fall photos, but I don't envy you the early snow.
We are getting a snowblower this year. A corner house and double driveway--just too much shoveling.
I don't blame you for that! I love my snow blower! I wish we could have gotten more color in the leaves, but it was a weird autumn here to begin with...
It was fall here and instantly turned to winter. I guess it is going to warm back up later in the week though.
Yeah, I saw that! I got my leaves picked up, so I am good either way!
Suicide is not something I have ever considered, but looking at the bridge it seems like one could survive a plunge from there... Beautiful spot for a picture though :)
Was Wheel of Time a fantasy or a sci-fi show?
I haven't either, so I don't really know. It seemed pretty high to me. I don't think that water is very deep, so you'd likely break your legs either way. Wheel of Time was a fantasy show, but it's based on the Wheel of Time book series by Robert Jordan.
Congratulations @bozz! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next payout target is 114000 HP.
The unit is Hive Power equivalent because post and comment rewards can be split into HP and HBD
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOP