Sometimes I’ll read a blog post I wrote and then note at the bottom the links to similar posts, and I’ll click on one and read the post and then pick another link at the bottom and click on that and read and so on and so on…and time moves on and the next thing you know I’ve spent an hour or more back in time remembering.
Whitefish Bay
Such a thing happened to me today, and eventually I wound up in 2014 celebrating my 1500th blog post. I read that relatively short entry and thought how much life has changed from 2014, but how much my life is the same today too.
I enjoy blogging because it connects me to all of you, plus I have an excuse to take pictures. But I also like that it’s a history of my life. I’ve often wondered when we did something, or what happened during a particular trip, and all I have to do is go check the blog.
The mouth of the Hurricane River
I guess it’s something of a public diary.
Anyway, today I checked to see how many blog posts I’ve written, but I can’t find that statistic. Seems there’s much more about how many people are clicking on your blog than anything about what you’ve done. I’m sure it’s in there somewhere. But if I had 1500 posts in 2014 I imagine the number is double that now.
On the shores of Sable Lake
Regardless…it sure was fun bopping around in the past. You should try it on your own blogs. I think you’ll end up smiling at the memories you have stored there.
As I headed home she wished me safe travels
PS: The images here are random things I shot on my camping trip. They didn’t make it into a blog post, but I thought they deserved to be seen.
Having an old dog means you have to watch where you’re stepping in the kitchen while you cook, as she’s underfoot looking for anything dropped, and she can’t hear you move around.
Having an old dog means you get to open string cheese and actually eat the whole thing because she doesn’t hear the wrapper. Or the fridge door opening.
Having an old dog means you can get up to go to the bathroom at night without her getting up and having to do the same.
Having an old dog means when she does wake up in the middle of the night to go outside she’s serious about it and you better sleep with one ear cocked.
Having an old dog means you don’t travel as much, and never as a couple because someone needs to be home with her.
Having an old dog means shorter walks and longer sits on the deck.
Having an old dog means you smile wistfully when she play bows, or attacks your feet. Because she doesn’t do that very often anymore.
Having an old dog means you stare at her when she’s sleeping, memorizing the way her fur curls around her ears.
Having an old dog means more vet appointments and bigger bills.
Having an old dog means cooking chicken and rice for someone other than your people.
Having an old dog means pointing out the squirrels in her backyard and feeling sad when she doesn’t care.
Having an old dog means sometimes you sit longer in one spot because she’s finally settled and you don’t want to make her move again.
Having an old dog means stepping out of the shower and having to dry your own legs off because she doesn’t come to lick away the water.
Having an old dog means waking her up before you go to the grocery so she doesn’t wake on her own and look for you.
Having an old dog means sometimes finding her looking for you anyway, even though you haven’t left the house.
Having an old dog means reassuring her that you’re still sitting in the same chair when she opens one eye to check on you as she naps.
Having an old dog is keeping all her toys, even her frisbee, out of sentimentality rather than any hope she’s going to play with them again.
Having an old dog means going out in the backyard to explore and sometimes having to carry her back into the house.
Having an old dog means the UPS or FedEx driver can ring the doorbell and she doesn’t go crazy barking.
Having an old dog means checking the floor after she’s been deeply asleep to make sure she hasn’t leaked.
Having an old dog means letting her choose where we go on our daily walks.
Having an old dog means sitting at a picnic table and watching her park rather than exploring much of it at all.
But mostly having an old dog means you are very very lucky.
I’m starting to feel repetitive here. All three of these lighthouses have appeared in this blog in years past. Still, lighthouses are irresistible, so maybe you won’t mind seeing them again. I didn’t mind visiting them again myself.
I was exploring the northern edge of the Upper Peninsualia, when I noticed a sign for Point Iroquois Light, and I remembered visiting it a few years ago.
A beautiful building.
During all the years I lived in the UP I never knew about this lighthouse. But it’s a special one, on a beautiful piece of land with a great view of Canada.
Canadian windmills across the way.
When we were here before it was open and we climbed the tower. This year covid has it closed, but I still enjoyed walking around the grounds. I was taking a picture of the lilac bushes along the front of the lighthouse when I realized there were butterflies everywhere.
Do you see them in this image?
So now you’ll have to indulge me while I show you some of those.
Hold still for a moment!
I spent a long time circling this lilac bush, trying to get a good shot of both types of butterflies.
I love the colors on the underside of this guy’s wings.
They didn’t stay still long, especially, it seemed, never stopping long in the sunlight.
Did you know the body of the monarch is spotted? I didn’t until just a couple weeks ago!
But it was so much fun to try. And in the end I got a few shots that I liked.
What a spectacularly beautiful day.
During this trip I camped at two locations, the first on the Straights, and the second at the mouth of the Hurricane River, where it empties into Lake Superior.
My site tucked into the trees. This was a beautiful, but rustic, campground.
This campground has a lighthouse too. You walk a mile and a half up a beautiful, wide, mostly level path above the shore of Lake Superior, out to the point where the lighthouse sits.
It’s a really pretty walk, though 1.5 miles starts to feel like a long way if you’re carrying all your photography gear.
My goal, when I made the reservation for this campground, was to do some night photography with the lighthouse in the foreground. It was a good plan.
Some of the coast here is rocky. All of it is beautiful.
I walked out there late in the afternoon one day. No one was out there, covid had this lighthouse closed too, so no park rangers were around.
Almost there!
No tourists either as the wind was picking up and another storm was on the way.
Au Sable Light Station, a beautiful compound.
It was kind of nice to have the place to myself.
I loved the colors of the brown ferns in the late afternoon light, with the red brick outbuilding.
On the other hand, it was still a couple of hours until the sun set, and a few more hours after that until it got really dark.
And I loved these sweet daisys with this building down near the water.
I started to feel uncomfortable with the thought of walking back down the path in the dark by myself. Plus there were no open restrooms out there.
The weather was changing.
So I reluctantly gave up on the idea of staying there until the stars came out. But I haven’t given it up totally. I plan to go back but bring someone with me so I’m not out there all alone!
The view from up there is stunning!
In the end it was good I headed back when I did. That evening the thunder began far off and quickly advanced until it was overhead. We ended up having 7 hours of pouring rain, lightening and thunder. I listened to it all from my cozy tent, glad I wasn’t running back through the dark and rain from the point!
As I listened to the pouring rain that night I thought about this open window in the tower. Bet no one closed it before the storm.
My last lighthouse is out at Whitefish Point. It’s a totally different sort of lighthouse from the other two.
This is the image everyone gets from the parking lot. It was starting to rain when I grabbed it.
And the beach there is totally different too.
Filled with huge fallen trees turned driftwood, tossed about by Lake Superior, it’s certainly not a swimmer’s paradise.
I had grand plans of trying to get the Milky Way behind the lighthouse. Or at least some stars.
Would have been cool with the Milky Way behind it.
It was sunny and 85 degrees when I left to drive up to Whitefish Point. When I arrived it was 58, windy and thunder was just off to the west. Another plan foiled.
And then the storm arrived.
So there you have it. Three lighthouses along the south shore of Lake Superior. Worth the trip even if I didn’t capture what I set out to get. I guess that’s the fun (and frustration) of photography.
There’s always next year. You won’t mind seeing them again, right?
On this day when people everywhere are celebrating their dads, I celebrate you.
1953
I wonder what you’d look like today, at age 91. I can’t quite imagine you any other way than how I’ve always known you. You never seemed to change much, you never aged.
1959
But you will always be 75, the age you were when you were stolen from us.
I know I’m lucky we had you that long. I know plenty of families where people have been stolen or injured much earlier than 75. I know plenty of people whose parents were taken when they were much younger than I was.
1980
I know parents whose children were taken. That’s beyond anything I can even imagine.
1990
So I know we were lucky. .
2003
But I can’t help but wish you were here today.
Every day is Father’s Day, dad, because we all think about you every day.
While I was camping in the Upper Peninsula last week I got to roam around several waterfalls. I’d been to all of them in years past, and if you’re a long time reader you’ve probably seen them all. But come along with me anyway, you deserve a short break and waterfalls are fun.
The biggest waterfalls in Michigan are near Newberry in the Upper Peninsula. Tahquamen Falls are a big tourist attraction, there’s a state park campground there, and a few hotels in neighboring towns. I just drove over from my campsite down at St. Ignance.
The view from the trail to the falls.
The upper falls are the highest. Notice the red tint to some of the water? That’s tannin from the cedar trees growing along the banks of the river. Sometimes the whole thing looks like frothy rootbeer. You can walk down a lot of stairs to see it from river level.
Should I or shouldn’t I?
Of course I did.
The view from down at the river.
On the way back up I stopped to take this picture of the rocky walls the river has cut away over hundreds of years. Don’t tell anyone, but taking pictures is a good way to rest when you’re having trouble breathing on your way up a whole lot of stairs.
Carved by the river centuries ago.
Then you can take more stairs down to the brink of the falls.
Definitely don’t want to skip this!
It’s important to take these stairs down so you can get a good, closeup look.
Sometimes it’s good to have a hand to hold on to.
Even if your knees and back are protesting.
Getting up close.
Then you can walk the four miles through the woods to the lower falls. Not many people do that, as the trail is quite rustic. I drove. Those stairs were plenty of exercise for me.
When you get to the lower falls you walk along a boardwalk back to get a good view of the falls.
I love this walk almost as much as the falls themselves.
Some years, when there’s less water kids play in them. But not this year! The noise and spray were pretty intense.
Lots of water roaring over the falls.
You can rent a rowboat and paddle over to an island where it’s safe to play in the water. As I was taking pictures I heard the thunder of a storm coming in. The people working at the rowboat station were calling everyone to come back, to get off the water. Everyone did but one young lady who was having trouble paddling in a straight line.
I don’t think he was a lot of help.
I enjoyed Tahquamen Falls, though I lost my phone somewhere there. I don’t remember putting it down anywhere, the last thing I remember doing was taking a picture at the bottom of the first set of stairs. Once back at the car I realized I didn’t have it and I traced my path again, all those stairs included, but never found it.
Ah well, it was pretty anyway.
I learned there are ways to survive without a phone, and continued on my trip, heading north and camping at Hurricane River. From there I explored a few waterfalls, the first being Sable Falls, just a few miles from the campground.
Guess what? There were stairs, even more stairs than at Tahquamen!
They have a sense of humor at Sable Falls.
But it was worth it! No one was there but a fisherman who was further down the river. I set up the tripod and had fun working on smoothing out that flowing water.
Such a pretty waterfall.
But I forgot to carry down my remote shutter release. So after I shot a few images by physically touching the shutter, and worried that I might have moved the camera doing that, I climbed back up the stairs to my car, grabbed the shutter release and clomped back down.
Smoothing out all the edges.
To be honest, I don’t know which of these pictures used the shutter release and which might have been just me and my finger. It didn’t make any difference, but you never know. It was worth the extra steps to me.
Then I drove over to Munising which has several falls. I visited Wagner Falls which has a small parking lot and a short walk back to the falls along a boardwalk…
This was a small waterfall on the walk back to the main event.
..where along the way you can hear the water flowing over the falls hidden by the trees.
Another beautiful waterfall. And very few stairs!
I can’t decide which image I like better of this falls, so I’ll show you both.
Water glides over the rocks.
Then I drove into town and visited Munising Falls. There’s a visitor center there with information about the area, and a very short level walk back to the falls.
The water was ethereal.
Both Wagner and Munising falls are easy walks from the parking lots. I recommend you visit them yourselves if you’re ever up there!
Last time I was up in that part of the woods (literally woods!) my husband and I walked the mile back to Miners Falls in the snow.
No bugs to speak of on that trip.
This year it was getting dark and the bugs were bad, so I didn’t. Plus, have I mentioned tourists? I hadn’t been in the UP (Upper Peninsalia) in tourist season in years. I’d forgotten about all those darn tourists everywhere!
I did drive out to see Miner’s Castle, a rock formation that you shouldn’t miss, and you get this vantage point from very near the parking lot. You can also walk down to see it closer. But did I mention tourists?
Spectacular.
So those are the waterfalls I had the opportunity to visit this trip. I hope you enjoyed them, it was nice to have company on all those stairs…and while I was running from the black flies!
Next up, maybe I’ll show you lighthouses….or maybe it will just be other pretty things. I have to hurry up or I’ll be talking about this camping trip the rest of the summer!
Watching birds fly over in the morning light from my cozy tent.
Pronounced Mackinaw, the Mackinac Bridge was finished in 1957, and it connets the lower and upper peninsulia of Michigan.
My first evening at the Straits State Park.
It’s just about 5 miles across, and once a year, on Labor Day, they close one side of it to traffic and let people walk across. I’ve done that once, and it was amazing.
The bridge lit up for the night.
This past week I booked 3 nights at the Straits State Park which is located just over the bridge, on the UP side of the water, hoping to practice some night photography. I booked three nights because you just never know about the weather. Would there be a clear night to shoot? Or would we have cloudy skies and rain?
I has lovely campsite, a grassy spot right on the beach with my own private path down to the water. That, of course, aforded me numerous opportunities to run out there and shoot an image. Or a dozen of them.
Lots of people around, but my site was large and grassy.
The first night I was there was clear, and after messing around in the evening getting some shots I set my alarm for 1 a.m. and went for the star and bridge combination. As I figured, the lights from the bridge washed out most of the stars, but I had a nice warm night playing around with settings, so I didn’t mind. And I figured I’d have a couple more nights to try again.
Trying to get some star in the shot.
The next day was another beautiful clear morning. I wandered down to the shore, noting the family of geese that had slept there and the freighter going under the bridge. All of that was fun, but I was planning on traveling up to Whitefish Point to see if I could get some more interesting night photography in. So I headed out.
That ended up being a story in itself. Though it was 85 and muggy on the Straits, it was 58 and pouring rain up at the point. So no night photography there! I headed back down to my campsite, and found this:
Fog overtake the bridge at sundown.
I was so glad I didn’t miss this, glad that it was cold and rainy where I had intended to spend my evening. The fog was so beautiful.
Things are turning pink.
And then the sun began to set. I could tell this was going to be spectacular.
Oh, this is going to be good!
And I wasn’t wrong.
People on the beach were as excited as if it were the 4th of July fireworks.
We all sat out there on the beach until the last bit of pink light faded and the fog rolled the rest of the way in. No night photography for sure, but I didn’t mind at all. And in the morning we woke to this:
No view to speak of.
So much fog I couldn’t even see the beach! So I headed out to find something interesting somewhere else. As soon as I left the park the fog lifted, it was hanging around over the water, but the rest of the penninsula was warm and sunny. But that is also another blog post.
There’s always something to photograph. Bug and buttercup.
When I got home I had one last chance to try for the pretty lights on the bridge. You’d think I had enough images of the Mighty Mac (and I did have several hundred) but you’d be wrong. I hadn’t quite got the one image I had in my mind.
Pretty, but not quite.
You know the one. The one people line up on beaches on both sides of the Straits to see every clear summer night.
This one.
When I got it a smile spread over my face. I’m sure the others on the beach didn’t know why I was giggling. But I did. When you get the one, you know.
And in the morning, to say goodbye, the bridge again cloaked itself in fog just so I could get one more artsy-fartsy image. Because she knows I’m always looking for that special shot.
Change Is Hard 