The skull pics are relatively tame in my not-necessarily-humble opinion but I wanted to warn y’all (all five of you) so they didn’t surprise you. I know that people have varying reactions to these kinds of pics.

So, the other day when I posted beautiful pictures with blue skies (and hot temperatures)? We do not have (and didn’t expect) any accumulations of the s-word but man oh man, it has been spotted in the air (a few flakes blowing sideways past my black skirt were noted by a fellow North Country Trail hiker today). When I took my beach walk this morning, I was wearing a wool/silk turtleneck, polartech vest, polartech jacket, scarf, skirt, tights, smartwool socks, keen sandals, glubs, and balaclava. There was a pretty good north west wind getting started up and it wasn’t cold enough to snow yet. But. I was able to safely jump the stream at the east end of the beach but I bagged the one at the west end because I knew I would end up in “quicksand”. Too cold for that today.

A while later, we all put all our clothes on and went on a wee skull-hunting expotition in front of the Old Cabin. Here’s npJane and The Pensioner (hey, he came up with that term🐽). Oh yeah, if you embiggen the next pic, you might notice that npJane is NOT wearing any socks! I noticed this (I am a mom) but held my tongue.

We found two bird skulls. We do not know what they are. Here is one of them with some feathers attached.

Hard as it was to leave the beach, I tore myself out of here for most of the day. The Pensioner and I were scheduled to hike the Castle Rock section of the North Country Trail with our usual buddies and whoever else showed up. As you can see via the next pic, a whole bunch of people showed up.

This bridge was a whole lot less scary today than it was a couple years ago when it was covered with a couple feet of snow and I had to traverse it wearing old-school snow shoes. I remember hanging on to that rail for dear life. I have newfangled snowshoes now. We did puzzle about those steep ramps up to the bridge…

We hiked with Tinkerbell. I *love* this backpack and this gentleman’s wife knew my uncle Don and my mom and went to the same church as me growing up but not my high school because she lived in a neighboring town and anyway I think she is a wee bit younger than I am although she also has grown children. By the way, she was one brave woman today because the eight mile hike that our group advertised was actually *11* miles (I kind of knew that but there is always so much cat-herding that I bit my tongue). But she was *not* a regular hiker and this is a relatively strenuous hike for The Great Lake State with a lot of up and down and I was impressed at what a trouper this woman was. I hope this adventure didn’t scare her off hiking!

Toward the end of our eight 11 mile hike today, a couple of the more hardy members of our group needed to go Off Trail. One of our rules is something like, “We don’t care (or need to know) why you go off trail, just let someone know and/or leave something on the trail.” Anyway these gals were Off Trail and they found a *bear skull*.

After our eight 11 mile hike (and a wee detour to the Driftwood Barrroooom because the introvert KW needed 15 minutes to restore her minimal social skills) we met for our annual dinner at the Village Inn in St. Ignace. I have to admit I was kind of reluctant about going to this dinner. I would’ve rather come back to the moomincabin to spend the evening freeze with npJane. We sat with a couple of people that I didn’t know, except that I have heard the man’s name about a billion times from The Pensioner. Wouldn’t you know that the man’s wife and I have about 10 billion connections going on plus we are close enough in age that our kids (and ourselves) are in similar stages of life. I won’t bore you with the gory details but it was kind of like we were finishing each others sentences and we are now facebook friends.

It is cold enough tonight for snow to happen but we’ll see if it does. It’s pretty darn cozy here in the moomincabin with the gas stove going full blast, probably warm enough that I won’t have to sleep in my leggings like I did many nights five years ago when The Commander was incarcerated in the long term care rehab facility and I was camping here.

How did I start this and where was I going with this? I do not know. Good night and love y’all, KW!

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