The Great Wander of 2026 - Day 3

The Great Wander of 2026

Day 3: May 26th, 2026

States Hiked: Michigan, Indiana, Ohio (5 total so far)

Trails Hiked: Riverview Park (Niles, Michigan), Loon Lake Reserve (Angola, Indiana), Wauseon, Ohio (Adventure Labs)

Distance Hiked: 1.8 miles, 1.0 miles, 4.3 miles

Elevation Gain: 43 ft., 52 ft., 69 ft.

Cumulative Wander: 24.3 miles

Duration: 3h 12m

I could've picked up Illinois on the list, but after driving into Chicago on Memorial Day and spending 20 minutes trying to get one block (because what's the best place to stand around on Memorial Day, the middle of the street is the best place to stand around on Memorial Day, because something something the troops freedom sad face?), I opted to yeet myself from the state rather than try to figure out where in the concrete jungle I should go while also hoping I'd escape the worst of Tuesday morning rush hour.

Turns out, anywhere in Chicago would've been better than Niles, Michigan. 

I spoke in Flint in 2017, and it was a transformative experience in my life. That not withstanding, I am an Ohio native and come from several generations of Buckeyes, and even though I don't care about sports nearly as much as I used to, crossing that state border still makes me feel like some kind of traitor, even knowing that states are irrelevant, arbitrary, invisible colonial lines. Then again, I'm tallying up said lines, so maybe I'm the problem. 

The roads immediately upon crossing into Michigan start feeling like they're going to punish you and your poor decision making for daring to enter. I only picked this place because it was close to the Indiana Turnpike, and I wanted to make the cameo brief while checking it off the list. All three hikes today were shorter than my standards normally allow, but I needed to make Pennsylvania at a reasonable hour. 

Then I got called a "dumb fuck" for daring to get in the way of a mediocre white guy while he was jogging. Slight overreaction for a momentary inconvenience, gosh Chad LaRue, what are you gonna do when someone gives you a real problem like stopping for a red light when you didn't want to? Second thought, bad idea, you'd probably blow out a tire accelerating your F-150 through one of those intersections at some dangerous speed like 30. Fuck your face, douchebag. 

After my bad mood of that hike, which had a cool bridge and little else, Indiana was a temptation to skip. After all, the most amusing thing in Indiana is normally the Bill Engvall billboard near the Ohio border advertising a show that happened in... ::checks sign:: 20-goddamn-18. Here's your sign, indeed. But once I checked the AllTrails map near Angola and saw something called Loon Lake, well... Loon Whore, thy name is me. It was a tick-infested nothing of a trail, but it checked the list.

Wauseon, Ohio had a bunch of Adventure Labs... for some reason. But it's emblematic of the reason I love to randomly wander: cool old buildings, amazing pink house, mural of magicians, repurposed train depot, and a bunch of Geocaching finds to approach my monthly goal. I still don't know how to pronounce your name, Wauseon, but you're an all-star... at least compared with Niles, Michigan. Extremely low bar to clear, but alas, cleared nonetheless.