The Roommate Triangle, part 3

On the third day, we arose and got ready to do one of my favorite activities. No, not solving crossword puzzles, baking cookies, or watching British detective shows. Hiking. Again, because I was in charge of the itinerary, I got to do the things I wanted to do. We packed turkey, mayo, and cucumber sandwiches for lunch. I skipped the cucumber and there were also supposed to be tomatoes, but guess who forgot them? Yes, hi, that would be me. Tomato-less sandwiches packed, we headed out for the Pinckney Recreation Area. The recreation area is one of the most, if not the most, popular mountain biking locations in the state, which is relevant because some of the trails are shared by hikers and bikers. From reviews on the internet, this was either a minor inconvenience requiring vigilance from both hikers and bikers, or the worst hiking experience ever, with trails overrun by bikers rocketing around bowling hikers over. As with many things on the internet, it was somewhere in the middle of two extremes.

A walk through the woods

I was hoping to get out early enough to avoid the heat, humidity, and the majority of the trail traffic, but as it turns out, not everyone crawls out of bed, puts on the first not-gross-smelling clothing they find, has a cup of milk followed by dry cereal, packs a sandwich/rain jacket/sunscreen/bug spray/first aid kit/water, and is ready to roll out the door in half an hour. So we got there closer to midmorning versus early morning. The parking lot wasn’t very full when we arrived, and we ended up seeing a decent number of bikers, but not hordes of them. We hiked the Crooked Lake Trail, which featured not many views of any lakes, crooked or otherwise, but it was a decent hike. Not my favorite, partly because you do have to be on the lookout for bikes all the time, partly because it’s not super interesting. No mountain views, lakeshores, streams, rock scrambles, or steps. However, it is in the woods, and it’s relatively quiet and removed from the noise of traffic, so since I have very few other options, I’ll take it.

Lake-ish view

Other than that, my major critique of Pinckney is that in some areas, it’s very unclear which direction bikes/hikers are supposed to be travelling. Most of the time, they travel in opposite directions so they can see each other coming, but there are certain parts of the trail where, depending on where you start, no matter which way you go there are sections where bikes will come at you “the wrong way” from behind. Because of the shared nature of the trails, I also wouldn’t recommend it for kids, at least any you don’t want to be turned into pancakes. Also try to go early, and bring bug spray. We ended up finishing the 5+ mile trail in a little over 2 hours before having lunch by the main lake/beach area. By that time, the beach was plenty crowded, though we managed to find a picnic table away from most of the craziness.

Frog sighting

There was another trail I wanted to try, but apparently not everyone considers a five mile hike a quick jaunt through the forest, so after a little geocaching, we left. It was still too early to head into downtown Ann Arbor for dinner, so we took a quick detour to the Botanical Garden. Unlike earlier in the spring, there were actually flowers blooming. Finally, we drove into Ann Arbor to have dinner at Aventura. Normally this is out of my budget, but hey, live a little once in a while, right? Aventura serves Spanish-style tapas and paella, and it took me way, way too long to realize that aventura means adventure in Spanish. Anyway, the food was expensive but really good (we got an assortment of tapas, chicken paella, and pears with crème anglaise¹ for dessert), and I also got sangria (because #YOLO²).

With that, our adventures in Ann Arbor were almost over. The next day, a Sunday, we went to church, and afterwards to the arboretum. After an early/quick dinner, it was off to the airport and it was just me in Ann Arbor again.

¹I watch too much of The Great British Bake Off, so I now have a tenuous list of extremely finicky, moderately obscure, distinctly British flavoured desserts I kind of want to try making. Including crème anglaise, which makes frequent appearances as being a pain in the neck to get the consistency correct.

²You only live once. Takes me back to freshman year of college.