About the book

        We all lived together in a big house.  Tim had the only good car.  He always did the driving.  That was great with me.  I hated driving long distances back then.  The photo of Tim and Mike outside our house just reminds me how young we had been at the time!  Plus, I've always had a feeling that Tim must have gotten so annoyed with all our military stories.

        Thisis the 1st hike we would take...

         This trip, we planned to walk the entire Lake shore Trail.  For me, this would be the first time seeing the entirety of this awesome park.  We had been to Pictured Rocks the year before, and we tried, but that trip failed.  Tim did go back the Fall of 1992, but now we were attempting it together.  I was hoping for a good trip this time!  I had my SF-1 film camera, 10 rolls of film, plus I was way more prepared.  I packed more poundage in the pack than ever for a hike, even in the Army.  There was no way I was giving up this time!

       There had been changes of jobs, promotions, and moving in/out with a girlfriend.  Most notably for me, there was the loss of the tips of two of my fingers.  In a work accident the tips of the fingers of my left hand had been cut off.  I was fine in spite of some discomfort for a month or so, since all the other changes made that loss the least of my problems.  After my move to another job, Tim was promoted to manager for his company.  He was also going to be married that next Fall.  In general, however, for him, everything was awesome.  Life was good for him.  For me, deciding to hike that year was a welcome distraction to my crazy life.  Most of the craziness had been self-inflicted.  As in most cases in my life, self-inflicted pain was the norm.

There were some new things for this trip.  We tried something different.  Tim's family was going to be vacationing at the park, so we had help at the beginning moving my car to end of the trail.  That would mean that we would not have to take a bus to back to get a car.  I love his family like my own.  They are great people.  Another new thing was our equipment.  Hamburger feet on the last trip made me spend the money on new boots with better socks.  Never again would boots be a problem on a hike!  We also picked up a PUR water filter.  It was perfect for what we needed.  That water filter would take miles off the trip, plus take pounds out of the pack when walking.  As long as we had moving water to collect and filtered it, we didn't need to carry as much water.  With my camera fixed and having even more film than last time.

 -- we were set to go!!

This trip is bitter sweet

This would be the last trip of any kind that the three of us would take together (At least at the time of writing this down).  The next spring, Mike would leave for England and get married, never to return.  Tim and I would go on other trips, other adventures, but no more with Mike.  It was an end of an era.  This whole trip was quickly put together compared to our other hiking trips, but it ended up being a great one.  Mike had his own backpack this time...