Waterloo-Pinckney Trail + Ride

Waterloo-Pinckney Trail, Portage Lake to Blind Lake.  Bike ride on roads returning to Portage Lake.

Waterloo-Pinckney Hike - 11/26/2021

Start Elevation: 919 ft.

High Elevation: 1,143 ft.

Finish Elevation: 890 ft.
Distance: 29.50 mi.
Elevation Gain: 1,099 ft.
Start Time: 8:32am
End Time: 6:40pm

Bike Return to Car - 11/27/2021

Distance: 18.12 mi.

Elevation Gain: 298 ft.
Start Time: 8:50am
End Time: 10:47am

Trip Report:
This trip was the answer to the question: How do you hike a 30-mile point-to-point trail with one person and one car?" I've been wanting to make the Waterloo-Pinckney hike for a few years now to try out one of the longer trails in the great trail-state of Michigan. But short of having to make my wife drive a second vehicle to help me shuttle vehicles I hadn't yet found a good logistical way to make this happen. Then it dawned on me: use your bike.

Thank God for the Journey

 [Originally published in the Monroe News on November 5, 2021]

My life feels as though it is approaching a rather eye-opening crossroads.  My oldest boy is just a year and a half away from moving out and heading to college and beyond.  My middle boys will both be in high school.  I also have a soon to be 3-year old and the Lord has blessed my wife and I with one more child who is expected in January.  I’ve spent the last 16 years looking forward to days when my boys would be old enough to be in sports and other fun Dad-loving activities.  I so yearned for those days when I could take them camping and introduce them to other wonderful adventures.  Now I look at it and it seems as though these precious days have come all too quickly.  I look at my young daughter and I can hardly remember the days when my boys were at such a tender (and cute!) age.

I believe this is a rite of passage that every parent goes through.  You simultaneously look forward to the future days when your kids graduate or get married or give you grandkids.  Yet at the same time you long for the days when you could still hold them in your arms.  What are we to make of this?  Is it part of our human nature to always long for both? To long for what we don’t have?  I frequently find myself looking forward to big events.  I’m always anxious for the next vacation that might be around the corner.  I can’t wait to see the next big event in the lives of my children.  But I also don’t want to so quickly bid farewell to the present.  I don’t want life to go by too fast.