This time last week I was in northern Michigan at one of my favorite places (You may have noticed I have quite a few favorite places in northern Michigan) intent, once again, on getting the perfect Milky Way image.

I had a walk-in site at Platt River Campground, reserved weeks ago, and high hopes that at least one of the three nights would be clear.

The site was beautiful. I knew it would be because I’d camped there once before a few years ago. It’s at the end of a trail, about 1/4 mile into the woods. Along the way are three other campsites, but mine was the last one.

The good thing about a walk-in site is that there are no RVs near you running their air conditioning all night. (Though I wouldn’t have minded having air, it was 98 F inside my tent most of the first night.) The bad thing about a walk-in site is that you have to carry everything in. So I stayed pretty minimal.

Anyway. I had high hopes for Monday night, thinking it should be clear. And it was hot and sunny when I first arrived.

Before I even went to the campsite to set up the tent I drove the Pierce Stocking drive that provides a number of opportunities to stop and explore.

But gradually, by late afternoon, clouds had moved in and that evening there were no stars to be seen. It even rained late Monday night, which brought the temperatures down. I was conflicted, grateful for the temperature relief but disappointed that I wasn’t out under the stars with my camera.

Tuesday I explored a few beaches looking for possible places to shoot the Milky Way, if the sky ever cleared. But it didn’t clear that day.

So I did the next best thing. I hiked a loop through the woods where there was the possibility of lots of birds. You know how I love taking photographs of birds. I had high hopes again of capturing something special.

About 2.5 miles, the trail was supposed to be filled with song birds, particularly warblers.

I heard lots of birds, none of them identified by my Merlin app as warblers, but I only saw one bird for a slight second, hidden in the trees, and I have no idea what it was.

Tuesday night it rained again. I don’t mind a little rain on the tent, but it meant there was no star shooting that night either.

Wednesday was predicted to be overcast as well, so I made plans to drive about an hour north and meet a couple friends in Northport, another of my happy places. It was time to spend a little bit of time in civilization.

That was definitely fun and had a lower mosquito to human ratio, but it deserves it’s own post, so stay tuned.