A Very Interesting Hike In Deed

Over the Labor Day weekend we again had visitors in the northland. Jess and Melissa spent the weekend and on one of the days we took the dogs for a hike on a trail that I had not been on before. It is a US Forestry trail that we later found out goes from South Dakota to New York and we started in the very middle of the trail.

It is a beautiful trail as you pass by fields

And whined through the trees

Glimpsing the first signs of fall

The day was hot as you can see by the tongues hanging out

This mud bog was a welcome sight

As it got to be an hour and a half with no end in sight we wondered what we should do. Doesn't this thing lead you right back to start we ask each other. Jess says (and we agree) that we should just keep going to see where it comes out (sound familiar Mikey and Jan???). We are all hot, bug bitten and getting tired. We worry about the dogs, especially Tackla who is old and is obviously becoming dehydrated.


Finally we come to a gravel road but we have not clue one where in the heck we are at. Oh wait, here comes a car with two older fellas and a lady in it. We ask them where we are-we are lost and have been hiking for almost 2 hours- they tell us we are about three miles from town....just go that way and you will hit the highway. They say that they are going to a craft show and off they go. Oh wait they are changing their mind, backing up, are they going to offer us a ride to our vehicle....NO but they do give us a half bottle of water which we give to the dogs.


We walk for a bit longer and I decide to call the sheriff to come get us (we were concerned about the dogs dehydrating)....rather than calling 911 I called information hoping to get the local police's number. The operator asks me if I want the non emergency number or the local library....I said the local library...I have no clue why I asked for that number. Heat exhaustion I think. Jess and Melissa figure that I was going to get a book telling me how to get back home!


Jess and Melissa convinced me to just call 911 which I did getting the county sheriff who finally figured out where we were (with no help from me as I kept babbling that we were lost, my three or four friends and our dogs...I guess I sounded pretty stupid!) and he sent someone to come for us.


Just as I hung up from him another car comes. The fella who stopped before came back (after he dumped his companions at the craft show) and asked if he could take all of us and our dogs back to our vehicle. Yup you sure can we say. I even thought to cancel our rescue ride from the county sheriff!


We all made it back in one shape. David shakes his head at us as we tell the story and of course I take a lot of ribbing for my foolishness.


Later that day we went back to look at the trail map which is when we found that it is the longest trail in the US or some damned thing or another and no it does not circle back to where you started.