Our Valley of Happiness

We are blessed with so many trail,parks and lots of serene nature just around us here in MI. Everybody should take time to step out and breath the pure air, and experience the nature for yourself. MI is called 'City of trails', which is absolutely the fact! We started to hawk island after our lunch and it was very sunny and pleasant. You will have to pay a small fee of $3/$5 to enter the park. You will have many things to do in the park starting from hiking to snow tubing.

Muskegon State park is a combination of forest, dunes and lake. There are so many trails inside the park to chose from and we chose Hearty hikers loop and lost lake loop. Hearty hikers loop includes scenic ridge areas where you can overlook the tree canopy and Lake Michigan. Lost lake loop is a trail surrounding 'Lost lake', as the name suggests, a lake lost in the woods! We reached the park by 11:30 on 5/22/2016. We grabbed a map from the park entrance. Since we already had experiences with hiking the dunes we knew it was not going to be easy. So we packed our hammocks, snacks, fruits and enough water for the hike. When you arrive Lake Michigan welcomes you with all its charm. Weather was very good and there were so many people fishing and boating.

I have never flied a kite! Never! Let alone flying one, I have never seen anybody flying kite,well in front of my eyes neither did I ever made a kite! So when we heard about the kite festival in Grand Haven, I couldn't wait to be there. While making the plans we read the reviews about this beautiful trail at 'Rosy mound natural Center'. We decided we will hike/walk the trail first and then go for the festival. It was a comparatively short trail, just around 3 miles. We thought it would be perfect for the day and headed right towards it on 5/21/2016. We reached the nature center by 11'o clock and just the first look on to the trail proved us we were not wrong. It was beautiful trail, very well maintained. I don't know if I can call it a hike, it would be a walk, but rated a lil above medium for its difficulty. The trails consisted of 70% stairs, at some area really steep stairs. But everything about the trail was just so beautiful and fresh.  We started walkin...

When you have a state park just close to your home why would you ever wait? At this point I am completely in love with Michigan and just want to explore everything in here.  My husband and I travel a lot, but never have done a planned hiking. So i thought this would be it, close to home and around 8 miles. That would be perfect for a start. So we picked a date, and decided to start early morning on 05/07/16.I was so excited for our first hiking trip, but just two days before our hike, the weather forecast changed for Saturday, and showed heavy thunderstorm.I thought we will have to postpone and so we didnt do any preparations and slept really late on Friday. Next day morning to our surprise the weather changed to Sunny with clouds. We couldnt wait, I marinated some chicken and put it in the oven quickly. We made plans on which trail to take and what all to carry. After all these mess, we started by 10:30 from home.