Maybury State Park (Michigan)
Episode Guest
Kale Leftwich – Park Supervisor
Maybury State Park (Michigan)
Park Stats
Location: Northville, Michigan
Date park was established: 1975
Park size: 1,000 acres
Fun Facts:
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- In 1919 this land was home to Detroit Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium until it closed in 1969
- It’s named after William H Maybury
- 6 hiking trails
- 4 miles of paved biking trails
- 7 miles of mountain bike trails
- 8 miles of equestrian trails
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Speed Round
What is your earliest park memory?
Camping with my parents.
What made you love the parks?
How they make you feel. They feel great to be in them, to see them, to feel them, to smell them.
What is your favorite thing about Maybury State Park?
Mountain bike trail.
What is your favorite thing to do at Maybury State Park?
For me, it’s mountain biking, but as a park supervisor, it’s seeing people enjoying the park.
What park have you yet to visit but is on your bucket list and why?
Sequoia (National Park). I feel like I have visited Glacier. I have visited Grand Canyon. I have visited Yosemite, and those are three of the most beautiful places in the world. But I can’t imagine seeing the largest living organism in the world, a Sequoia tree. And I just want to. See it and smell it and hug it.
What are three must-haves you pack for a park visit?
I’m not quite a millennial. I’m almost a Gen X er. I’m right on the border. So don’t shoot me, but I have to bring my cell phone to document things, to see it right. I might want to write about it later. Might be on Facebook. It might be on Instagram, something. So I gotta have my phone.
Definitely gotta have water because that’s the one thing you need. That’s the one thing that can keep you safe.
And the proper clothing.
How about a good travel partner.
What is your favorite campfire activity?
Can I say bourbon? And marshmallows. Maybe the combo.
Tent, camper, or cabin?
We talked about this earlier. I’m a car camper. I love the security of the car, I’ve got a full size Suburban, so I can sleep in the back of the thing. I can have the keys in the ignition. Things get kind of weird. I can leave at the drop of a hat. It’s hard sided. I don’t have to worry about whether it’s not built like, sorry, if you have a travel trailer, but they’re built out of sticks and staples and they leak and a grizzly bear can rip in there.
In two seconds. And at least my car door will slow grizzly bear down for 10 seconds, enough time for me to get in the car and get out of there, but I feel secure. I feel free. I feel like I can do what I want and I can have that. I can have the experience I want to have because it’s whatever I want to do.
And the car allows me that flexibility
Hiking with or without trekking poles?
Without. Yeah, I got hands if I need to use them if I need to be scrambling like that, but I don’t want to have 1 more thing that I have to hold or lose.
And what is your favorite trail snack?
Snickers.
What is the best animal sighting that you’ve had?
I mean, for around here, it’s just coyote because they hide so much, even even though we’ve got only 944 acres. You hear them all night long, but if you get a chance to see one, that’s cool. It’s rare.
What is your favorite sound in the parks?
Either kids enjoying the playground or just this the sound of leaves when you’re walking on a trail.
What is the greatest gift the parks give to us?
That they recharge us. IThey bring us back around. Life brings you down. Parks bring you up and that’s what parks provide. Recharge.
Transcript
MISSY:
Let’s browse the park that served as a home and community to many during the tuberculosis outbreak in the early 1900s. Located just outside of Detroit, Michigan, this park is a great respite from city living. Join us as we explore Mayberry State Park. I’m your host, Missy Rents, and this is the Parks Podcast. I’m excited to welcome Cale Leftwich, who is the park supervisor at Mayberry State Park. Cale, welcome to the Parks Podcast.
KALE:
Thank you so much for having me.
MISSY:
So we start each episode going through the stats of the park. So I’m going to go through a few. Let me know if I’ve got these right. Mayberry State Park is located in Northville, Michigan, which is just west of Detroit. It was designated in 1975. The park is 1,000 acres. And some fun facts. In 1919, this land was home to the Detroit Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium, and that was open until 1969. It is named after a I was blown away by how accessible this park is and how much activity could be done there so close to a major city.
KALE:
And that’s the big part of it is so close to a major city. When you walk around this park and you’ve got 100 foot 100-year-old oak trees surrounding you, you would not know that you are 16 miles from the edge of Detroit. At the time when it was built, when this park was built, one of the fifth or sixth biggest cities in the world at the time, or at least in America. So that is what makes us such a rare resource. There are some parks, and they try to put trees and have paved paths through the woods, but they don’t have paved paths through 100-year-old oak trees. Not this close to the city, anyways. Everything has been developed. But because of this park’s unique history, it has not gone through those developments. It actually was treated as a park early on, even though it was a hospital, because the design of the hospital was to heal you. So we’ll get into some of that. But yes, your stats are right on. We’re 944 acres, which in Wayne County, which is the county in which Detroit resides, that’s a large piece of public land, 944 acres. And you mentioned all the stats on the trails.
MISSY:
Yeah. And it’s interesting to me because Like even the roads surrounding this park, it feels like a city. So it’s like you’re immediately brought into this other world. It’s fantastic.
KALE:
Yeah, we’ve got this, what we like to call in Michigan, the up north feel, but downtown. So in order to get this experience, you have to drive three hours up north to get to the bigger forests, but not here. We have it right here. It’s surrounded by all kinds of development, which as everything begins to get more and more developed around us, that makes us more and more relevant this is such a rare resource and we keep trying to say that when people come to us all the time they want to say hey what can we do here what kind of things can we do to bring people in and we say we don’t need to do anything the attraction is that there is nothing here people come here to unplug to enjoy what we already have so as long as we can present it that way and educate people on that we’ll never have a problem filling our parking lots
MISSY:
well and the parking lots were full and then i started on the trails and And I never ran into anybody, but let’s get into it. So I mentioned that it was opened in 1919 as the Detroit Municipal Tuberculosis Sanitarium. Can you tell me about the way back history of this land and that facility?
KALE:
So it kind of ties into what we just went through with COVID, how we all kind of had to stay in our own little places to not spread disease. So this is the northwest corner of Wayne County. So Wayne County said, hey, what do we do with our people with tuberculosis so that we don’t spread it through our city centers. I know we’ll designate some land in the very corner of our county, and that’s where we will send people to get better, but also to keep it away from the city centers, which in that day, the thought was, hey, fresh air and exercise is what you need. And so they found some land that hadn’t been developed. Some of the areas were farmland, but a lot of it was just existing forests that had probably been logged in the late 1800s. So it already had 30 or 40 years of growth. So, which is what I meant kind of contributed to its park-like feel even a hundred years ago. And more so now that it’s had lots of time to just kind of sit and develop into what it has become.
MISSY:
Yeah. And I think for me, and I think this is my own ignorance, but I couldn’t imagine being kind of sent away or put away in a facility when I was sick until I went through COVID. And I’m like, I mean, without other resources and without Thank you so much.
KALE:
Yeah. exercise.
MISSY:
Yeah. It’s like the spot treatment somewhere to get away. And that’s what this place was. So it was eventually named after William Mayberry and he was a finance person, banking guy who retired early and then became an advocate and really ended up being in charge and helping build this and run this facility.
KALE:
Absolutely. So it’s named after him, but he had a much more hands-on approach. It wasn’t just like, Hey, we’re going to name it after this guy because he was an in local government or a big donation. He wanted to be a large part of this. So he was actually one of the ones that went through and went through the woods and kind of designed all the roads that tied everything together. So him and another guy are going out there and staking the roads, which today, more than a hundred years later, are the basis for our hiking paths. So when you’re walking those paths, that was a rich financier from a hundred and something years ago designing this hospital. So, you know, it’s There’s so many ties to history in this place that you might not know. And so we’re doing our best to put that story out there. We’ve got some interpretive signs along the way. We’ve got history hikes. We’re really trying to get that out there because it is so unique. So many other parks are like, oh, it was once a factory and it was donated or it was once hunting land and now it’s donated. But how many were tuberculosis treatment centers?
MISSY:
And I think when I expected to arrive and like have the ruins of the buildings and that’s not me. most of the buildings were closed or were torn down by the time the state got the land. But there are really great historical markers throughout that tell the story of what was there, oftentimes have pictures of what it would have looked like. So there are ways to experience it.
KALE:
Yeah. And even still, when we do our history hikes, the hospital closed in 1969, might seem like a long time ago, but we still get people that have a direct connection. Some of them were there when they were kids, when they’ll raise their hand and say, yeah, My brother was here or I was here when I was eight or nine. And with the advent of modern medicine and antibiotics, I’m fine now, but they were there. So there’s still tangible links to this day to the tuberculosis center.
MISSY:
Oh, how meaningful to have that living history. There’s a couple of things that he did that I think are really fascinating. The first is he was an advocate for a farm so that they could have fresh fruits and vegetables. Yes. Is that the farm that still is… a part of the park?
KALE:
Correct. So he started the whole living farm so they could have fresh food, they could have fresh meat, another way to get exercise, another way to give you purpose. Hey, you’re not allowed to go back down into the city, but hey, maybe we can go out here and plant some vegetables and have that all be part of the healing process. And yeah, so that farm was still in existence when the state took over in 1975. So the hospital ends in the park, the state acquires the land in 1971. And for four years, they’ve begin to develop a plan and demolish the old buildings. And in 1975, it opens as a park, but also they kept the operating farm. They knew how important that was to the community. And so for the next 30 years, the farm operates as part of the park, does all kinds of educational things. And unfortunately, in 2003, there’s a large barn fire and the original barn burns down, at which point the state is not entirely sure, does this still fit into the mission statement of of preserving the land and providing recreational opportunities. I would argue that education was a huge part of what we do, but also it was the only farm operating on state land, right, in the entire park system. Now, we don’t deal with domestic animals for the most part, actually at all, but there was such an outpouring of concern from the community. They wanted to see this farm back. So many people had memories tied to it for the previous 30 years. And while the state was trying to kind of figure out what they were going to do with it, a nonprofit organization, the Northville Community Foundation, stepped up and said, hey, we would love to run this thing if you guys would provide a lease to us. And we said, fantastic. This is the perfect marriage of what we need to do. You guys have got the financial backing, how to operate it. We’ve got the land. We can provide it to you. And they signed a lease about three miles away. There was another roughly the same size, roughly the same age barn that a subdivision was going in, and they said, you guys can have the barn for free. You just got to move it four miles down the road. So Worthville Community Foundation was able to put together enough donations to raise the money to move the barns. Animals were donated and the farm is back operating. It’s incredibly important. It’s incredibly successful. It’s just a great addition to the park. So we’re so happy to partner because they can do things that we just can’t. And they’ve got a staff that’s probably larger than ours. And that’s just what you need to run and those types of things. So just really, happy with how that turned out. It’s just a testament to the community around here, their care, their dedication towards that facility and that experience.
MISSY:
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s nice to have that continue. The other thing that he did, and I don’t know what other sanitariums were like around the country, but he created houses for physicians, houses for nurses. There were men, women, children. He really made this a community within a community. It was completely self-sustaining. He had water towers electricity, everything was there.
KALE:
Yes. And it’s so not what you would expect when you’re out there walking a hiking trail and you see a sewer cap. Because there was full infrastructure through this entire place. There was city sewer. There was city water. There was a power plant. And yes, there’s still some morsels of it out there. But the idea was that this was its own community and the doctors lived on site and they put housing in there. Now, interestingly enough, when all of the hospital stuff was torn down in the early 70s, they kept three doctors’ residences, one to be the park headquarters, and then the other two were for the park manager and park supervisor for employee housing. So those old doctors’ residences became our headquarters and became residences for the previous supervisors. Somewhere in the mid-90s, we kind of did away with park housing, and supervisors lived off-site. But yeah, for 2016, something years, they were utilized as housing for the park supervisor.
MISSY:
So there is still something there that you can look at and see kind of what was built there.
KALE:
So just last year, or two years ago, when we built the new headquarters over here on the eight-mile side, Tracy, the previous supervisor, she went everywhere trying to see if anyone would be interested in those buildings, whether it was the Northville Historical Society, anything that could get done to save it. However, because the state had invested in them over the years and added modern windows and modern and conveniences throughout, they lost kind of their things that would designate them as possible historic structures. So there wasn’t the interest out there, but still trying to make the best of an unfortunate situation. They got together and did a prescribed burn and a lot of the firefighters in the local communities got to have a nice training exercise out
MISSY:
of it. Very nice. So you talked a little bit about Mayberry Farms, which is what the farming community is, but you collaborate with another important entity with friends of Mayberry. And there, I feel like you guys do a lot about bringing community in and you work together with the community.
KALE:
Yeah, the Friends of Mayberry are a fantastic group. They, I mean, they just help in so many different ways. So they provide so much help and actually they run a few events. So they do first day hikes. They help with history hikes. They fundraise for the park. They help out with volunteer hours for invasive species polls. So like we sometimes have garlic mustard in the park and they’ll organize something to help take care of that or invasive phragmites. And so they just help us both through our stewardship efforts, through our fundraising efforts. They’re helping us run events. We meet monthly. They’re a president and their vice president are what I consider friends. We have a great working relationship. They also like help bring ideas. They are super helpful in our track chair program. So for those that don’t know, we have a battery powered wheelchair, a the track chair. It’s on tank tracks and it can get people who have mobility devices out onto the trails. And so the Friends of Mayberry are our track chair guides. So when someone calls and wants to rent the track chair, we don’t always have the park staff because our staff is out mowing the grass and prepping the picnic shelters or handling things. I can’t pull them off there and say, oh, come back here and go for a two-hour walk with someone. But through my track chair guides, which is mostly my friends group, I can call up one of them or send out an email blast and say, who’s available tomorrow from two until four? And one of them will show up and help. So they are fantastic when it comes to fundraising help. You think of friends group and you think like, yeah, what do they like? Maybe do some bottle drives or can drives and get you a hundred bucks or a car wash, make you $200 so you can plant a tree. That’s not this group. They’re tied into different corporations and just some community members that that have some good finances and they’re able to really raise a lot of money and do things that we wouldn’t be able to do without them. So without speaking about actual numbers, let’s just say they provide us with a lot of financial help.
MISSY:
And I think it’s not, not only is, is this one so unique because it is so integrated. I mean, at least in my experience, you don’t see them quite, quite like friends of Mayberry. They’re pretty special, but also I think it’s a reminder that there are ways to get involved and support your local parks. And this one, it felt like I was part of the community when I was there to hike and spend the day there. So yeah, they’re really special. And I’m glad we could spend a few minutes talking about them.
KALE:
Yeah, they’re great.
MISSY:
Let’s talk about planning a trip to the park. How do you find that most people use Mayberry State Park?
KALE:
So for the most part, we are like… We’re so much more than this, but you could kind of consider us an outdoor gym. Like people just come here to walk, to run, to hike, and to mountain bike. So it’s those type of day use activities, but it’s community-based. I mean, you rarely see one person by themselves. It’s always… two ladies in the morning or a couple of guys going for a hike or four guys going by on mountain bikes. So like, I feel like it’s like a community meeting space as well as for just health and wellness. I guess that would be the way that I see most people using the park. There’s a multitude of ways that they use it, but those are the most popular ways.
MISSY:
And it’s a day-use park. There’s no camping in this park, correct?
KALE:
Correct. We have an organized Boy Scout camp, but you have to be Boy Scouts to use it. And it’s a rustic facility. It’s vault toilets and it’s hand-pumped wells. So roughly every other weekend, we’ve got a Boy Scout group in here. But you can’t pull your camper in here and think you’re going to run a campsite or anything.
MISSY:
And what’s the fee structure when someone comes? So
KALE:
we’re set up like any other Michigan State Park in that our fees are based around, well, first off, it’s a vehicle fee. We like to say that it’s a vehicle fee because anyone that walks into the park or bikes into the park is free to use the park. All Michigan State Parks are free to walkers and bikers. However, if you want to bring your vehicle in, the fee structure is based around your license plate. So you can purchase what we call a recreation passport. It’s our fancy word for our A& But if your vehicle is registered in the state of Michigan for $18, you can purchase a pass that would be good from the day you bought it until your registration runs out. So it can be worth up to 12 months. Sometimes it’s worth five months. Sometimes it’s worth seven months. But you also have the option if you’re a Michigan resident of getting a $5 cheaper pass if you purchase it when you register your vehicle at the Secretary of State. That’s our name for DMV here in Michigan. So yeah, it’s only $13 And you get it for the full 12 months. You just check a box on your registration. It puts a little indicator on your tab. You’re welcome to go to all 104 Michigan State Parks as many times as you want for just $13. So it’s incredibly reasonable when you look at what some of other park systems charge and what they offer. Because Michigan State Parks is, I mean… Okay, if you want to compare us to California, maybe not. We don’t have that spectacular of stuff. But compared to other Midwestern states, the amount of Great Lakes parks that we have, the amount of camping that we have, we have sand dunes in Michigan. We have what we consider mountains up in the Upper Peninsula. We’ve got parks on the largest lake in the world, Lake Superior. So we really have a real diverse set of parks within. We’ve got metro parks that are like us, that are near metropolitan centers, but then we’ve got 40,000 acre parks up in the Northwest at UP. So really, really impressive park system, I think.
MISSY:
Yeah. And then for me, like I was out of state, there was like a kiosk that I put my license plate in and put my money in and put it in a little folder thing or a little envelope. Yeah.
KALE:
Yep. So there’s a little bit more expensive for out of state, which is how most systems are set up. So we do a $10 daily or a $39 or $40 annual. And if check my guide, it changes it down again.
MISSY:
Yeah.
KALE:
Really great
Speaker 02:
value.
Speaker 00:
Yes. Great value.
MISSY:
And then when you get to the park, okay, so we’ve talked about hiking, biking, horseback riding, the other things that, because I’m a Southerner, I didn’t think about cross-country skiing, but now that I know it, I’m like, what a great place after a nice snow to get a little exercise.
KALE:
Yeah. So we’ve got a little apparatus that goes behind our gator, and our gator actually switches from tires to tracks in the winter. And so it pulls that apparatus behind it that lays down these perfect cross-country ski trails. And so we need about four inches of snow. And we like to see like three or four days of, you know, below freezing temperatures so that we can go out there and spend eight hours making this and let it melt the next day. But we will if we have to. That’s what we’re here for, is to provide that recreational opportunity. But we sure hope that once it snows, it’s going to stay so we can make those trails. But on the other side of that. So we’ve got those paved trails that we talk about. What we do is that we will plow the snow from one side of the trail. We call it a trail, even though it’s an eight foot wide asphalt path through the woods. We’ll plow the snow to one side to build the snow up. That allows walkers and hikers to walk on the plowed section of the trail. And then the other side will lay the cross country ski trails. Oh,
MISSY:
it’s fantastic. So it’s still a park to come to if you just want to go for a walk in the winter. Just wear a coat. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Tell me about the fishing because the trails I took did not take me any place where there would be fishing.
KALE:
Okay. But there are trails that do. So yeah.
MISSY:
Oh, I definitely did not hit every trail. I missed a lot.
KALE:
Yeah. So we have the Mayberry fishing pond, which not sure. I don’t see the best way to try and figure it out. I’d say it’s probably 25 acres gets to about 15 foot deep. It’s manmade through an impoundment, a dam. And then there are elevated fishing piers that are along a trail that go around the circumference of the pond. It hasn’t been stocked recently, but I’ve still seen people pull out pretty decent-sized bass out of it. It’s, again, really nice because it’s approachable. You don’t have to travel far. Fishing’s fairly decent, but, I mean, can you ever really know how good the fishing is because can you ever really trust a fisherman? It was this big. But, yes, I have seen some people pull some things out of there, and And for the most part, we get positive fishing reports on
MISSY:
it. The two other things I want to talk about is you’ve got great shelters for picnics and recreation. Those shelters also have great facilities that I’m not used to in a lot of state parks for restrooms and whatnot. But the other thing, you have the coolest playground for kids.
KALE:
Yes. So first, the shelters. We’ve got four park shelters here. They’re fantastic. They’re your traditional style park shelters. They to me it’s it’s really weird because people will be like what do you mean what’s so special about them and there isn’t anything special about them except for the fact that they just perfectly fit harmoniously with nature they don’t have bright colors they’re painted leather brown rust oleum on the steel posts but then they’re asphalt shingles they’re black shingles just just everything that you want to give you a great outdoor experience without drawing your eye away from nature they’re there to be in nature you don’t need fancy you need clean You need something that will work perfectly for the purpose that you’re there for. So yes, that’s the shelters and I’m passionate about them because they’re one of our most popular draw. We have so many birthday parties and weddings and gender reveals and just a million different things that people come to this park for and have been coming here for years, company picnics, just, and yeah, great, great shelter. So moving into our playground equipment, we are so happy to have our playground equipment. Previous supervisor did a fantastic job. Playground equipment is so expensive these days. And especially if you’re getting cutting edge ADA accessible playground equipment. And that’s exactly what this is. The previous playground equipment was original from 1980-ish and was the kind of stuff where you, every year you bandaid back together and you want to have something. And so you continue to fix what you got and you paint it every year and you try to make it as good as it can be. But you would just come leaps and bounds in 40 years for playground equipment. And this new style of stuff was funded again through some great community outreach. So the Northville Firefighters Fund helped out with a big part of funding it. A private donation for a man who lost his wife to cancer. He wanted to make a donation in her name. And then the DNR matched the other 50%. So all people coming together. And this This is again, I mean, the old playground equipment, you might see seven to 10 cars next to it. Every single day, I’ve got 50 plus cars. Kids
MISSY:
were having like lunch picnics there and then playing. I mean,
Speaker 00:
it was so
Speaker 02:
appealing.
KALE:
Yeah, they move the snow off of it and they just get right to playing it like all year long. Like this is not a seasonal thing. This is a playground that is constantly utilized every single day. So previous stuff was a little bit farther in of the woods. This is right off of the parking lot. This is accessible. It’s educational. There’s just so many good things about this stuff that we’re just so happy to have.
MISSY:
I think I took a video of it. So I’ll make sure to post that video on the page so people can see how cool this park is. Okay. So I think a lot happens in Michigan State Parks and you guys have events in just different focus areas throughout the year. What are some key events that people might want to think about planning trip around?
KALE:
Okay. So one of our biggest ones is one that we put together with the farm and that’s the Easter egg hunt. So every year there’s some time around Easter, there’s a large Easter themed event. And we’ve kind of switched away from the whole like competitive Easter egg thing where the big kids push the little kids away or any of that. So it’s, we put out these Easter eggs and kids run out and they get it. And as long as they come back with one egg, they can trade their egg in and they get this kind of like goodie bag that has all their stuff. So it ends up being more of this kind of a fun farm community event than just a competitive Easter egg hunt. So we’ve got face painters. We’ve got the full farm set up. So all of the spring babies are out. You’ve got baby goats and you’ve got baby ducklings running around. And just the playground, of course, is a huge hit with all of it. But just a great event to where we fill our parking lots for it. And to do that in April when the weather is kind of a coin flip. Sometimes in Michigan, you might hopefully get a sunny 50 degree day, but you might also get a windy, rainy 35 degree day. So that’s a super popular one. All of our hikes are really popular, whether it’s a first day hike or history hike. We keep all of these events on Mayberry’s website, as well as the DNR’s website. So you can always kind of scroll through and see what we’re offering because it does change. In fact, this year, just last weekend, we had Mastron themed event where the astronomy club of Ann Arbor brought out a bunch of high powered telescopes and allowed the public to look through. And then you had people that could explain to you, interpret what you were actually seeing, because you can bring a $30,000 telescope and put me on it. And I might, I don’t know what I’m looking at. If I don’t have someone kind of explaining like, here, here’s what you’re looking at. And here’s how far away that is. And here’s how big that is to really blow your mind, basically. Yeah. So that was a, that was a fantastic amount. We’ve got, seems like a 5k every year. We are every weekend. We’ve got lots of different fundraising, 5k junior diabetes research fun or the thin blue line which is a police for police officers that were killed or wounded in the line of duty so just so many good 5k based events a lot of runs a lot of mountain bike races those types of things are what we have so i’ll
MISSY:
put links to the event pages on on this page so if you go to the episode page then then you can find the event listings okay okay when i was introduced to the park i heard rumor that it might be haunted and i love it Yeah.
KALE:
Yeah. No one believes anything is haunted until you work night shift. Once, once you work night shift and, and you things just sometimes don’t make sense. So roughly about 15 years ago, we would get these messages on our voicemail asking for Leslie. This is a, this is a public park. There’s no Leslie that works here. There’s never been a Leslie that worked here yet. All these, and it wasn’t the, same voice. It was different voices. So one, that kind of gave us an idea of maybe is Leslie somehow tied into the park. So at the old headquarters, there would be just weird occurrences like books falling off of shelves when you’re there alone, lights turning on and off that are not motion activated lights, lights that have light switches. Sometimes the same thing kind of be explained, but, but on the other side, it always seemed like it was not anything that was maybe insidious. It was always benevolent. Like you would hear like creeks and stuff and you would just say, cause the old floor or the old headquarters had two floors. So you would hear footsteps above you. And that would just be like the most unnerving thing. But I was working it with a ranger one time when I was still just getting started in parks and she would just like yell at Leslie. She’d say, knock it off, Leslie. And it would stop. So, okay. So maybe there’s something to it. I don’t know. What
MISSY:
is there?
KALE:
Perhaps. So we kind of would chalk it up to the old headquarters building. It’s an old hundred-year-old building. That’s probably what it was. So now we move to this new building and I have been sitting in this office and the lights in the hallway have turned on and then turned off. Now they’re motion activated. So sure. I’m like, okay, maybe a mouse ran or something. And that’s what it was. And it would turn the light on. But when a motion activated light works, it stays on for 15 minutes. Not this. It would turn on, stay on for six seconds, turn off, turn back on. You’re like, that’s not how this works. That’s weird. And you’re the only one in here. So you get out and you walk around, you look, nothing. Hi,
MISSY:
Leslie.
KALE:
Yeah. So you say, hi, Leslie. Hope everything’s okay today. Everything’s great until it’s at night. And then it gets weird. Then it feels a little bit
MISSY:
weird. I like it. I like it. I’m even more intrigued.
KALE:
Yeah. So I don’t know. We like to think maybe had something to do with the sanatorium. Not sure. Everyone has had weird experiences like that that has worked here for the last 20 years. Everyone’s got a Leslie story. So I don’t know.
MISSY:
I think this is going to air shortly before Halloween. So I’m very excited to have that ghost story part of it. Okay. So one of the things I think this is geared towards kind of teaching people how to use sparks And it can get cold in Michigan. But in your year round. So how would you best advise people on preparing to be outside in different kinds of weather?
Unknown:
Yeah.
KALE:
So you’re going to dress for the worst possible situation. That’s what you have to think of. You don’t look at what you actually see. You think what could possibly happen, right? So if it’s 40 and sunny out, think what happens if it gets windy and it starts raining. So you’re going to make sure that you’re always covered in those, in those situations. So you always want to be able to cover up your skin. Like exposure is the worst thing. So even if, even if it’s just extra layers, light layers, that that’s enough to really protect yourself. But you want to have that flexibility if you need to a shadow layer. If you need to put on an extra one, just be prepared for that. This park is It still confounds people, even though it’s two miles by one mile. So realistically, if you walked in any direction straight for 25 minutes, you should be able to run into a main road. Right. Sometimes people get lost and they have been lost for four to five hours saying, I just couldn’t find my way out. So, and that’s understandable. That can happen. We do our best to put great maps out there. We’ve got trail markers at every intersection. We’ve got maps out there, but it’s still, when you’re, when you’re fresh to parks, you can just kind of get turned around. So protect yourself. Make sure you’re ready for the weather. Bring your snacks. Bring bug spray. Bring sunscreen if it’s hot in the summer. So just the old Boy Scout adage, always prepare.
MISSY:
Yeah. And then my grandfather used to always say there’s no bad weather, just bad clothing. Absolutely. And so I think that’s something that is important. And it is a park where your car is not that far away from you. So it is easy to bring those layers. Some other… I’m just kind of pulling up my notes from when I visited. Some other things I think were interesting that I want to bring up is there’s great bathroom facilities. So I think people, especially right off the parking lot, there’s a bike fix-it station. I think this was the first time I had seen it. And I think that’s a huge asset for people.
KALE:
And to me, that’s a huge kudos to the community that we can have those types of facilities and not worry about them. That when those things start to getting brought up, hey, should we get one of these bike maintenance stations? These are a bunch of expensive tools that are on a little cable system. And are these going to stay here? Are these going to walk off with someone? Is someone going to vandalize this? No, they have been out there for years and people have respected them. So kudos to our crowd that comes to this park. We love that we can invest in those things and know that they’re going to pass and be there for everyone. Same thing with the bathrooms. Those bathrooms are original structures from the early 80s. And I have worked in some other parks an hour away from here. And you put something brand new in and within a year, it’s got people’s names carved in the doors. It feels new. Yeah. And those are from the early eighties and they have aged beautifully. And again, just like those shelters, complete harmony with the surrounding nature. They don’t draw your eye away from it. They compliment it. They just feel right where they’re at.
MISSY:
Yeah. The other thing I think I wanted to advise is downloading the trail map. I was someone who just wanted to just immerse myself and there’s lots of trails and they intersect and everything. And I didn’t have that. So that’s why I can understand why you could get lost in it. because I wandered. But I mean, it wasn’t hard to find my way back, but I think it would have been helpful had I downloaded the maps beforehand, just in case.
KALE:
Absolutely. And then one thing that you might think of it being it having the the rustic feeling that it does being that, you know, middle of nowhere kind of feeling in the woods that it does because we’re so close to city centers. Every cell phone I know works perfect in the park. So we might think of this as maybe a distraction, but utilized correctly. It’s a heck of a tool. to have with you to take pictures, to document your little trip and to be able to keep yourself safe, whether it’s through communication or through maps.
MISSY:
Yeah. And then the last, we talked about cold weather, but I went in the heat of the summer and there were lots of gnats and mosquitoes. So I also knowing, being aware of when you’re going, so maybe take some bug spray or if it’s going to be cold, don’t forget your chapstick. And I think it’s just really important to understand your situation, but nothing is a reason not to go to this fantastic park.
KALE:
Absolutely. And your experience is going to be dictated by how much preparation you put into it. So if you are prepared properly, you’ve got the things you need, you’re going to have a great experience. And one thing you talk about being a Southern, don’t sleep on Michigan’s heat and humidity in the summer months. We think of us as a Northern state because yeah, it is, and it can get super cold in the winter, but 96, 97, 98 as possible in July here with the same humidity you guys got down there. It was intense. I
MISSY:
don’t think I have been in humidity like that. And I lived in Houston for a while.
KALE:
Yeah.
MISSY:
Okay, Kale, so we end every episode with a speed round of questions. Just answer with what first comes to your mind.
KALE:
Okay.
MISSY:
What is your earliest park memory?
KALE:
Going camping with my parents. Absolutely.
MISSY:
What made you love the parks?
KALE:
How they make you feel. They feel great to be in them, to see them, to feel them, to smell them.
MISSY:
What is your favorite thing about Mayberry State Park?
KALE:
The mountain bike trail.
MISSY:
What is your favorite thing to do at Mayberry State Park?
KALE:
For me, it’s mountain biking, but as a park supervisor, it’s seeing people enjoying the park.
MISSY:
What park have you yet to visit, but it’s on your bucket list and why?
KALE:
Sequoia. I feel like I have visited Glacier. I have visited Grand Canyon. I have visited Yosemite. And those are three of the most beautiful places in the world. But I can’t imagine seeing the largest living organism in the world, a sequoia tree. And I just want to see it and smell it and hug it.
MISSY:
What are three must-haves you pack for a park visit?
KALE:
I’m not quite a millennial. I’m almost a Gen Xer. I’m right on the border. So don’t shoot me, but I have to bring my cell phone to document things, to see it, right? And I want to write about it later. Might be on Facebook. It might be on Instagram, something. So I got to have my phone. Definitely got to have water because that’s the one thing you need. That’s the one thing that can keep you safe. And the proper clothing. I don’t know. How about a good travel partner? That’ll work.
MISSY:
Good ones. What is your favorite campfire activity?
KALE:
Is it okay to say bourbon?
MISSY:
Sure.
KALE:
Marshmallows. Yeah, either of those two, maybe together.
MISSY:
Yeah, a combo would be fun. Tent, camper, or cabin?
KALE:
We talked about this earlier. I’m a car camper. I love the security of the car. I’ve got a full-size Suburban, so I can sleep in the back of the thing. I can have the keys in the ignition. Things get kind of weird. I can leave at the drop of a hat. It’s hard-sided. I don’t have to worry about weather. It’s not built like, sorry if you have a travel truck, trailer, but they’re built out of sticks and staples and they leak and a grizzly bear can rip in there in two seconds. And at least my car door will slow a grizzly bear down for 10 seconds, enough time for me to get in the car and get out of there. But I feel secure. I feel free. I feel like I can do what I want and I can have that. I can have the experience that I want to have because it’s whatever I want to do. And the car allows me that flexibility.
MISSY:
When you’re hiking, are you hiking with or without trekking poles?
KALE:
Without, yeah. I’ve got hands if I need to use them, if I need to be scrambling like that, but I don’t want to have one more thing that I’ve got to hold or lose.
MISSY:
What is your favorite trail snack?
KALE:
Snickers.
MISSY:
What is your favorite animal sighting?
KALE:
I mean, for around here, it’s just coyote because they hide so much, even though we’ve got only 944 acres. You hear them all night long, but if you get a chance to see one, that’s cool. It’s rare.
MISSY:
What is your favorite sound in the park?
KALE:
Either kids enjoying the playground or just the sound of leaves when you’re walking on a trail.
MISSY:
What is the greatest gift that the parks give to us?
KALE:
That they recharge us. I mean, they bring us back around. Life brings you down. Parks bring you up. And that’s what parks provide. Recharge.
MISSY:
Kale, thank you so much for being part of the Parks Podcast.
KALE:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
MISSY:
Until next time, we’ll see you in the parks. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please be sure to like and share on your favorite podcast platform. Music for the Parks Podcast is written, performed, and produced by Porter Hardy. For more information, please follow us on Instagram at theparkspodcast or visit our website at theparkspodcast Thank you.