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Author: Michael

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Ionia

Ionia County

Ionia County Run

County Complete

I was shocked that this run went as well as it did. My last three runs were rough because I think I pushed myself to do many miles in a short period. I did take the previous two days off, so I had to run a long run, based on my plan always to do a longer run if I ever don’t run a 5k every other day. This run went well.

My second county sign...
My first look at Long Lake in Ionia County. Very shocked at the quality of the houses on the west side of the lake. Many, many very nice places.
Another look at the lake through somebody's yard.
Long Lake was a pretty big lake, but there weren't very many places to get a good look.
East side of the road looking at the creek.
This little creek was very cool to see coming from this big lake. Later as I ran back by this spot, I saw ducks. By that time, I had seen probably eight ducks on this run—lots of birds.
Such a cool little shed with about 4 inches of moss on the roof.
Houses were close to each other on much of this south side of the lake.
Another look at the lake through the trees and over houses and barns.
Finally found a spot where I could get a good look without much blocking the view.
Another look at the east side of the lake.
Found this very cool mailbox and met a dog named Thor and his owner about this time.
Finally found a spot where I could look west, where I started the run.
Very cool building.
I couldn't see the lake during the rest of the run toward the east. It was just roads and houses.
A lot of these types of views all along this stretch of road.
Heading north on a back road toward the lake, hoping I would get one more look. Saw a bunch of ducks and other animals on these swampy sides of the road here.
Such an excellent way to list homes on this little side street using oars.
On the way back heading west.
The other side of the road had some water too.
I took photos on the way out of this location, but I saw these ducks on the way back and got a couple of good shots.
Turned the corner and saw my car sitting there waiting for me. Today was a great day!
Great Design Plan to run the county for this website

I planned this run because it was the closest undone county to my parent’s house. Still two counties away. A very long drive, but it was fascinating from 131 to Long Lake. The most impressive drive I’ve done for this project. Even more interesting as I approached Long Lake, I saw many things that I’ve never seen before in Michigan. Types of trees, narrow roads with water on both sides, all kinds of interesting sites.

Ionia County

Belding
Berlin
Boston
Campbell
Clarksville
Danby
Easton
Hubbardston
Ionia
Keene
Lake Odessa
Lyons
Lyons
Muir
North Plains
Odessa
Orange
Orleans
Otisco
Pewamo
Portland
Ronald
Saranac
Sebewa
Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns /cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run). Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past. Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!
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Presque Isle

PresqueIsle County

Presque Isle County Run

County Complete
I've seen these in the past and never took a picture. I decided today I would.
Even though I'm again running around a lake, I'm far from this lake (Tomahawk Lake). Here I am at the far east of this route.
A look into the woods at this point in the run. Alway fun to explore visually.
There will be many types of shots because this is what most of the run looked like. I was passed by off-road vehicles, several, and saw more at the gas station and between here and there.
Long straight aways!
Even more straight aways on the south side of the lake.
Then the trail started to get choppy, and this was when it started getting interesting.
My first glimpse of Tomahawk Lake.
Even better look.
I had to get off the trail to get this close to the lake, but I was delighted. No houses, just a lake.
Same place just looking at the middle section of the lake (facing north).
I took this final photo, again same spot looking east.
This photo above is what showed on Strava. The road I'm running on comes to an end. But Strava had done this to me before and showed no roads where there are roads. I used "mapmyrun" for the map at the bottom of the page here. There is a road there.
Still I can't say I wasn't worried.
But sure enough, there was a road that looked like this on the east side of the lake.
I could see the lake on the east side, looking west.
Not only that, but there was a boat launch on this unmarked road.
When I turned the corner at the north side of the lake, it was getting very dark in the sky. I might get soaked by the time I made it to the car.
But it was dry most of the way on the north end.
I could somewhat still see the lake at times.
Here is one last shot of Tomahawk Lake on the northwest side. I remember starting this run and thinking to myself, " I should do this 5k quicker than the last one I did about an hour ago" because that one was SLOW! Well, this one was even slower, and I'd like to blame the times when I stopped for the pictures, but honestly, I'm just getting slower. Maybe I should make my next county-run goal to be a bit faster.
5k finished, but I still had a quarter mile to walk to the car, then the rain hit, but not bad.
Great Design Plan to run the county for this website

Presque Isle County was my second 5k of the day. I planned it on the west side of the county to check two counties off in one day. There are many very cool places on the Lake Huron east side of the county, and Lisa and I will have to visit there someday. You will notice in the second photo roads are going all the way around this lake. However, Strava didn’t show the roads on the North end of the lake.

Presque Isle County

Allis
Bearinger
Belknap
Bismarck
Case
Krakow
Metz
Millersburg
Moltke
North Allis
Ocqueoc
Onaway
Posen
Presque Isle
Pulawski
Rogers
Rogers City
Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns /cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run) Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past. Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!
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Montmorency

Montmorence County

Montmorency County Run

County Complete

I decided to knock off two counties today because there were two over on the east side of the state that I haven’t hit yet. Both are kind of out of the way for a trip to the cabin in the U.P., so it was nice to get them checked off.

It all started on this short, slight stretch of road... this is the .1 of the 3.1 miles.
You can barely see the lake from the road, but I'm sure the view from the house is spectacular.
First peak at the lake. There were lots of houses close together.
These three pictures were the first great view of the little bear lake from the west side.
Second photo from the same spot.
Final photo looking north from the west side of the lake.
Running on the south side of the lake.
Most views of the lake were like this...
... or this.
I was able only to get good views of the lake in few places because there were so many homes, and the lake was down an extensive bank most of the way around this cute little lake.
Here are very cool trees with a beautiful lake in the background.
South east side of the lake with a cool little view.
It seemed like every house on this lake had an excellent sign, but it wasn't until I saw these two that I started taking pictures of them. You could tell from all the effort that went into these signs that each family LOVED this little lake.
East side of the lake.
Most of this lake sat lower than most of the houses, and it was tough to get great photos of this cute little lake.
There were so many very cool signs by the houses on this lake. You could tell, each family loved this little bear lake!
Another cool sign!
Another sign made of metal with little bears inside the big bear—so many very cool family signs.
Road along the east side of the lake.
The Northeast side of the lake had a lot of cool houses more spaced out.
The final look at Little Bear Lake from the north-end run almost complete.
Start of the day on bear Lake Dr and Dagon St.
Great Design Plan to run the county for this website
I plan on running Gaylord with Brenda A., so I drove past to get to this cool little place!

I was trying to find a couple of close counties that I could knock off the list. I discovered this little Bear Lake that was the perfect distance around. Also, it was nice that It was on the West side of the county, so It wouldn’t take as long to drive to it. It would have been nice to do another run by the big lake, but not this time.

Montmorency County

Albert
Avery
Bigelow
Briley
Hillman
Lewiston
Loud
Montmorency
Royston
Rust
Vienna Corners
Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns /cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run) Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past. Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!
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Gladwin

Gladwin County

Gladwin County Run

County Complete
On the way to Gladwin.
I showed up at the recreation area. Nobody around, and it was a fantastic day!
Was what looked like a fairly new, but well defined trail.
I had such an incredible time running through the woods.
I did see the road several times because this long route was in a minimal area and repeated the same area several times.
Was rough at times.
... but clean and smooth in other areas.
In several places, you could see another part of the trail in the same area.
In some area's it wasn't as well defined. However, there wasn't much struggle to stay on the path.
A lot of slight uphills but so many!
There was a little interesting placed bridge.
Very cool older trees.
At times I wish I was riding my mountain bike through this trail. Very cool.
Finished.
Great Design Plan to run the county for this website

Two thoughts about running this county. This was one idea:

But the idea that won out was running this 5k in the Gladwin Recreation area. It just seemed very interesting to run a single track that I didn’t think would be busy, and I was right. I saw no one there. However, it was clear that people have ridden it this year.

Gladwin County

Beaverton
Bentley
Billings
Bourret
Buckeye
Butman
Clement
Gladwin
Gladwin
Gladwin
Grim
Grout
Hay
Sage
Secord
Sherman
Tobacco
Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns /cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run) Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past. Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!
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Midland

Midland County

Midland County Run

County Complete

This run started on the wrong foot. I was driving through a neighborhood, trying to find a place to park. It was either in front of somebody’s home or in front of a mailbox. I couldn’t find a good place to get over and off the road. I found a backyard that had an area that allowed me to get off the road. So I parked there. I did a couple of things in my car to prepare for the run, then got out of the vehicle. The owner of the property was yelling at me and NOT happy that I parked on his grass. He gave me few “f” bombs, and I was more than happy to find another place to park. I’m sorry that I did that and found a parking spot at a gas station a block away. I took down his address and will send him a card and a gift card of some sort as an apology. But not fun to get greeted in a new community in that way; lesson learned.

I wanted to lead with this picture. Here is a beautiful sign about 3/4 of the way through the run.
Neighborhood with beautiful grass lawns.
Here are some very cool houses on the west side of the town of Coleman.
Huge silos of some sort, maybe grain.
I was downtown on the main drag heading east. There were a lot of cars on this main road.
Considering that we are on the 105th day of 2021, I'd say the Coleman fire crew had many runs.
Saw this and just had to take a closer look.
So impressive! Glad I stopped for a picture!
I loved the birch trees on the east side of town on Saginaw Rd.
I thought this was such a cool name for a road.
I saw this impressive house on the east side of town with a large private pond.
School in the forground football field in the back ground and the water tower in the far back ground!
I love old barns and corn silos.
Far across this field is the express way. I could see cars traveling on it.
Saw another barn/garage toward the end of my run.
I ran past the baseball diamond. I hope it sees some activity in the next couple of months!
Another shot of that water tower up close!
Here is the gas station by the expressway that I had to park at after irritating one of the locals.
Great Design Plan to run the county for this website

Today’s run wasn’t a  planned county. Just one that I wanted to hit that is near the edge of where I’ve hit already. I’m trying to convince Lisa to go with me soon to the thumb area for a weekend and knock a few counties down. I decided to do the town of Coleman. I’ve never really been there, but my parents owned a fantastic home in Hope, and I’ve been to the city Midland a million times. The only thing I know about Coleman is my cousin Keshia is from there.

Midland County

Coleman
Edenville
Geneva
Greendale
Homer
Hope
Ingersoll
Jasper
Jerome
Larkin
Lee
Lincoln
Midland
Mills
Mount Haley
Porter
Sanford
Warren
Any place in Bold and Red are townships / towns /cities I’ve run a 5k for the county run (or the closest city to my county run) Any place in Bold and Blue are townships / towns / cities I’ve run anytime in the past. Any place in Bold and Green are townships / towns / cities I’ve done website / hosting / design work – best website builder for small business – WordPress design hosting and search engine optimization. I’m a small business website builder – contact me to get a website that works! If no Green color is on this page, please talk with me (Click Here). I’ll be encouraged to change one to Green!

I'd like to hear from you!

Contact

If you have information to share with me about a county, please do so on that page’s comment section. I’d like others to hear what you have in mind about a particular county. If you have a question for me, if you want to go for a run with me, if you have a project you need help with, I’d love to hear from you. Thanks so much!

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If you have some ideas about a county please share them on that counties comments section. I would like others to see what makes the county great.  If you would like to contact me privately you can do so here:                                   thanks. m