Hmmmmm…I seem to have gotten off blog topic. I was supposed to show you the rest of my two nights of camping up in the Upper Peninsula. The intent of that trip was to take another crack at capturing the Milky Way. But as you know, there are only a few hours a night, and a few nights every month, when the Milky Way is best photographed and weather doesn’t always cooperate.

When I left you last I was setting up camp during a torrential rain storm. There was so much water surrounding my tent, and a huge bubble of water under the tent that I decided to just drive away and go exploring. I figured I’d sleep in the car the first night and let things dry out.

I drove down the Garden Peninsula toward my planned destination of Fayette State Park which houses historical buildings.

The Garden Peninsula is beautiful in it’s own right, full of scenic pastures and barns. Truthfully if this was all I saw over the weekend I’d be happy enough.

But I was curious about the historical buildings. Would they make a fantastic foreground for a Milky Way shot?

I arrived at Fayette State Park late in the afternoon when the sun was lowering and making the cliffs glow.

The buildings looked beautiful in the golden light. I tried to figure out which way was south, knowing that the Milky Way would rise from that direction later in the evening.

Mostly I just enjoyed shooting the buildings in the soft light and imagining what life was like back in the day.

And then I began to wait in my car in the parking lot for it to get dark. Gradually the other visitors left. And as they left clouds began to roll in. Soon enough it was clear that there would be no stars that night. Plus I was beginning to feel creepy about being there alone.

So I drove back to my damp camp and worked at getting the puddle out from under my tent, then I went to sleep to dream about stars for the rest of the night.

The next day I visited Seney Wildlife Refuge, not as early as I’d hoped, but still morning. Almost immediately I saw this loon family snoozing.

They were a long way from me and even my zoom lens didn’t get them really close enough, but it was cool to see all four of them, mom, dad and the two little ones resting after breakfast.

Then I realized that the milkweed, which was growing everywhere, was covered in monarch butterflies.

I had so much fun stalking butterflies, trying to get that iconic monarch image. They moved a lot, but at least they were closer to me than the loon family!

Eventually I moved on and found a couple of swans…

…and a Canadian goose family with teenagers.

Still, I wished I could have gotten a good photo of the loons. And then I rounded a corner and there was another family of loons, focused on breakfast, much closer to the road.

I parked so fast and quietly got out of the car. I didn’t even close the door. The car was parked in the middle of the road with the door open and I didn’t even care.

I was so happy to get some closeups of this beautiful couple. Their youngster, an independent singleton, was swimming and eating on his own quite a ways from mom and dad. He was not so easily photographed.

But I got quite a few nice images of the adults. They made my day. I felt that regardless of what the weather did to my star hopes I was happy with the trip just because I’d been able to watch the loons.

Then, not to far from the end of the refuge road I came across a dead tree. I could see something hoping around in the branches so I stopped, once again in the middle of the road with the door open.

Turns out there was a single elusive cedar waxwing, who managed to always have his head turned away from me…

…and a king bird who never sat still long enough to get a clear photo.

I stayed there a long time but never did get any better images of either of them. And then I headed back to camp to wait for it to get dark again. I took a nap and considered where I was going to go if there were stars.

I couldn’t talk myself into driving the 14 miles back down the Garden Peninsula, I felt like I needed someone to go with me if I was going to hang around historic buildings in the middle of the night. So I just went out to the boardwalk a couple miles away and shot straight out over Lake Michigan.

Nothing exciting in the foreground, and a stupid big ole streetlight behind me (but that did light up the grass in a kind of cool way) and not anything like what I’d hoped for. But the lake was gently lapping the shore and the air was warm and the stars were shining.

So I was happy.

And I have a couple of people that are interested in going back there sometime to shoot at Fayette State Park. I’ll contact the park rangers first and make sure we’ll be allowed to be there after hours, and we’ll scope out just where to stand to get the sky and a building in the shot.

Stay tuned. It’s going to be awesome.