River trip - Day 1

The day started off gloomy and chilly, continued raining on and off the whole day. We had a power breakfast at Real Food Cafe in GR, which would keep us running strong all day long for hiking later.
We scouted around at Hodenpyl Dam access looking for the Manistee river trail for about an hour. Awaiting for the pouring rain to slow down, we finally decided venturing into the forest along the unmarked trail which ran parallel with the river bank. The forest floor was covered with above-knee-high ferns with lots of wild mushrooms scattered around. Elle was getting a hang of hiking by herself until the trail could hardly be seen at all that we had to walk through the ferns. As the forest getting denser with no sign of any trail, we decided to head back and looked for another trailhead to start again.
As we're about to leave the Hodenpyl Dam access, we're lucky to meet two hikers pointing us to the direction of the trail head that led to the suspension bridge. A hike down a slope and we were at the "little Mac" suspension bridge over the Manistee River. There're quite a few people fishing on the bridge in the light rain. The water was so clear that we could see a few suckers in the river.
We hang out along the river bank below the bridge soaking up the beauty of the nature and the smell of the damp woods. Elle had so much fun "fishing" with dada even though all she did was reeling in the fishing line. It was hilarious to watch her shrilling with glee and excitement as she was reeling in and the artificial lure popping out of the water. She thought she caught a fish!
On a side note, we met two creepy men who camped beside the river bank. As Hin was checking out the river on the other side, Elle and I went past their campsite to check out the scenery. We chatted a bit and one of the guys suggested Elle would have lots of fun at the nearby river bank. As we headed towards the river bank, the guy came over and kept telling us "I don't mean to bother you. I just want to show you the river...". Luckily Hin was back looking for us when we're trying to "escape". The second time we past by their camp as we're leaving, the other guy stood up from his camping chair and said he's going back to the trailhead too as his friend was waiting for him there. It's so creepy that he kept saying "I'm not following you guys." as he would stop and wait for us to past by him and then walked behind us. We joked about we should have used the line "I have an axe but I'm not going to use it." to start the conversation with creepy guys next time.