We returned from D.C. a week ago today. I was so exhausted, so overwhelmed by crowds of people everywhere we went, that I needed some quiet time.
So I booked a campsite at the nearby state park for three nights, avoiding the weekend deliberately because no matter where I’ve camped sites fill up with crazy people starting Thursday afternoon.
Luckily for me my favorite site, #16, was open for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.
Site #16 is kind of sweet!
It’s my favorite site at this state park because it’s almost entirely surrounded by trees and underbrush, making it much more private than most of the sites.
I didn’t even take Katie, I was that tired. I planned on sleeping long in the mornings and doing nothing more than walk in the woods, read books and take naps.
Morning light deep in the woods.
Most of that happened.
When I checked in on Monday evening the ranger warned me that there were a “bunch of teenagers in site 12.” I wasn’t that worried, I figured there would be some laughing and squealing and music during the evening but my experience has been that everyone sort of settles down at 10 p.m. when quiet hours begin.
Not so much with these teenagers.
A bit of bee balm reaches for the light.
They were playing rap loudly when I arrived, and continued that throughout the evening, and well after midnight. Sometime during the night I heard a sound like a bunch of metal pipes falling. Then lots more laughing and yelling. Eventually, around 1:30, the music stopped and silence prevailed.
Early the next morning as I silently walked through the campground on my way to a walk in the woods I saw this.
Oops. One side of their camper collapsed.
I laughed, even while hoping no one was hurt.
My walk was wonderful, four miles took me two hours, caused by the hilly trail…and the fact I was taking pictures, practicing the manual settings that I learned last Sunday at my lavender field photo shoot.
Trees reaching for the light too.
The morning light was wonderful, sliding sideways through the trees. So many things were pretty that I had to stop often. That’s my excuse for my slow time. I’ve found it’s always good to have a camera around to use as an excuse when you’re just moving slow from lack of sleep. Most of the photos here are from that walk.
Don’t forget to look down sometimes, lots to see there as well.
Tuesday night a marauding groundhog woke me as he was snuffling around my tent for about an hour. Then coyotes howling far away kept me from falling back asleep. Still…that’s what camping is all about.
Wednesday I spent most of the day at my site, trying to get a decent picture of a yellow warbler that was flitting around. I didn’t end up with a great picture, but I’ll show you what I got in the next post.
Such fun stuff to see no matter where you look.
Then…Wednesday night. I really really wanted to get a good night’s sleep on my last night camping. But that wasn’t going to happen, because across the street, out of my sight, but right on the other side of the narrow park road, two huge campers were parked. Their many children were loud all day, but that was fine. The moms yelled, loudly, at the kids all day long, but that was OK too.
What wasn’t Ok was that after the kids went to bed the four adults sat around a campfire and discussed loudly most of the world’s ills. I am guessing what they were talking about, because it sounded like an Eastern European language, but it was obviously something they were very passionate about.
Touch-me-not with morning dew.
The four of them talked louder and louder, talking over each other excitedly. It woke me up at 1:30 and went on until almost 5 a.m. At one point I got up and walked to the end of my driveway, listened a bit and realized they weren’t talking louder than they had been all day. Maybe this was just the way they talked. Sure they’d been drinking, but they weren’t sloppy drunk.
A peaceful morning doesn’t always mean a peaceful night.
Maybe it was just the night air that made it sound like they were sitting around my fire. I went back to bed, drew the blankets up over my head and tried to imagine that their voices were just the sounds of bullfrogs singing.
The frogs actually were singing, but I couldn’t hear them over my neighbors talking.
I don’t know what this is, but it was very cool.
So, night three of little sleep. The first night I told myself not to let six teenagers ruin camping for me. But with two out of three nights ruined by rude noisy people I wonder if maybe camping has lost it’s appeal.
I don’t know. Maybe I should try again somewhere further away from the city. Maybe I should have called the night ranger. Maybe I should have just gone over there and asked them to pipe down.
Trent, over at Trent’s World urges us all to post one smile a week, because we could all use a smile now and then. I’m been absent these past few weeks, not because anything terrible has happened, or because I couldn’t think of any smiles. No, I haven’t posted a smile in awhile because I’ve been so darn busy, or out of town, or forgetful.
Maybe all of the above.
Breath in deeply and try not to swoon.
But this week I can’t but help sharing a smile. Specifically a very sweet, heavily perfumed smile. The kind of wide smile that happens when you see fields and fields of lavender in bloom.
Which is exactly what happened to me.
For a moment I thought I’d been transported to France.
I signed up weeks ago, long before our D.C. trip, even before the Norway adventure, for an evening photo shoot in a lavender farm located about an hour away from me.
Then I forgot all about it.
Peddling some lavender.
Good thing I put it on the calendar in ink, just to remind me, otherwise I’d have missed this heavenly opportunity altogether. And that would have been a shame, because I couldn’t stop grinning the whole evening.
Smells yummy.
Imagine.
Ready to make some lavender honey.
A small group of photographers and a whole lot of lavender, lining up in rows, topping hills, glowing in the sun.
Some of our class having fun out in a field.
Alive with bees and butterflies, the purple heads nodding in the breeze or reaching for the sky.
Rows and rows and rows of lavender.
Did you know there’s white lavender too? Me either.
And a few other photo worthy things as well. Some of them were placed there by the lavender farm itself, as points of interest for photographers.
Waiting for a rider.
Some of them were just growing wild along the edges of the fields.
Trying to blow free.
All of it was just wonderful.
Evening sun made the orange pop.
There was so much to see, let me insert a little slide show here.
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As the sun went down we were reluctant to leave. But we had our lavender shots and all that was left was to capture the sunset. So we did.
Lavender sky over lavender fields.
I can’t fully explain what a treat this was, and I thank Bob Ditommaso, a professional photographer who teaches great classes, for putting these opportunities out there for us.
That’s Bob in the blue shirt.
It was a fun evening, I met some great people and I finally figured out how to capture images totally in the manual mode on my new camera. That’s been so frustrating for me and I was grateful for the “aha!!!” moment I had out there in the lavender.
If you want to understand your camera better, and you’re in the Detroit area, take a class from Bob, and then join him and some other great students for one of his meetups.
I promised a few photos of the churches we visited so let me do that before I get even further behind! The first church we visited was in Vance, a town not too far from where we were staying. It’s beautiful and sits in the center of town.
A family member is the caretaker for this church and he gave us a personal tour of the building…
…including taking us up into the bell tower.
This is the church where my husband’s grandfather is buried so it holds a lot of family history.
It’s history also includes a tiny little door over on the side which is where the women, back in the day, were required to enter.
I’m glad those days are gone!
And then we were able to attend an outdoor Sunday service at the church where my husband’s grandmother was baptized when she was a baby.
It happened that there was a baby being christened that morning, and I couldn’t help but think the ceremony might have been similar all those years ago.
In fact, the baptismal used in the ceremony we witnessed was the same one used back then.
We were given a tour of this church too, by a town historian who said his English wasn’t very good, but we found it to be perfect.
It’s a smaller church than the one back in Vance, but just as beautiful.
Our Norwegian family went out of their way to help us understand family history. We met with several people over the two weeks that knew something of the history of the area or of the family.
It really made our time there special; everyone was so friendly and helpful. We know we only saw a tiny bit of what was there, but hopefully we’ll be back some day to explore even more!
The flowers were similar to what we have here in Michigan, but that’s just about all that was. We took several day trips exploring the Southern end of Norway, all of it pretty rural.
I especially enjoyed a car trip where our host graciously stopped whenever I asked so that I could pop out and take photos.
I thought this was an abandoned house along the coast, but it’s a new build, just meant to look old.
I’m sure by the end of the day he was quite ready to park the car at home! But just look what beautiful places we saw!
Boat garages near a boat ramp.
The coastline was rocky but far more level than further inland. There were a lot of farms, complete with beautiful little (and sometimes large) barns and rolled bales of hay that looked like large marshmallows dotting the countryside.
Another seaside village just begging to be photographed.
Another day trip took us to this scenic seaside village full of white houses, so cute I could hardly stand it.
White houses, red roofs, the town shone even without the sun that day.
I especially liked this little boat garage.
Stormy skies didn’t diminish the color here.
And then there was our walking tour of Farsund, a larger town quite near where we were staying.
We had a pretty day to walk the town.
With it’s steep roads and even more steeply pitched roofs, it reminded me of towns in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Farsund is a sea port.
I enjoyed getting a closeup look at this place. So many pretty things to notice.
No air conditioning required in Norway.
I haven’t shown you nearly enough…
An alpaca farm near the coast.
…there’s so much to see.
The village of Faed, tucked up against the mountains was where my husband’s grandmother was baptized.
I haven’t even shown you the lighthouses, the churches or the mountaintop. I don’t think I can share it all.
Color reflected.
I hope, if you get a chance to go you don’t hesitate to grab the opportunity to see this beautiful country.
The only sunset I saw, but it was spectacular.
Meanwhile in the next post I’ll show you lighthouses. Or churches. Maybe a little of both.
We traveled back across the Atlantic on Tuesday, crashing into a deep sleep Tuesday night. Wednesday was devoted to Katie, picking her up from camp, exploring the yard, neighborhood and house with her, as she confirmed everything was as it should be.
And now, finally, I have time to show you some more of Norway.
The sound of bees feasting was everywhere.
I took over 2800 pictures. Not all are great, but a whole lot of them were pretty good. It’s hard to take a bad picture in scenic Norway, and I ended up with 675 images of our time there that we put on thumb drive for the family.
Just like at home, daisies flourished.
Still, I can’t share 675 images with you here, I think WordPress would implode under the weight of it all.
So. How to give you a glimpse of Norway’s beauty? What to focus on? I guess I will have to break it up in multiple posts; today I will focus on plants.
A buttercup looks away during an evening walk.
We arrived in late spring and noticed that quite a lot of what was blooming there was blooming at home too. Lupine and buttercups, daisies and peonies, roses and foxglove were all thriving. When we left hydrangea was beginning to open and sweet smelling honeysuckle climbed the mountainsides.
So many beautiful roses graced homes in every village.
We took long walks on back country roads, along fjords and up mountains. Everything was very very green, moss cloaked old rock fences and ferns clustered against huge boulders.
Cool green envelops aged stone walls.
Much of the time it was damp, though I got to wear shorts a couple of days, and we made it out in the boat once between wind and rain storms.
I don’t know what this is, but it was everywhere along the roads.
But that’s for another post.
Foxglove glows against the rocky mountainside.
For now I hope you enjoyed the foliage of Norway.
Hydrangea just starting to show it’s colors.
Soon I’ll post more about sites along the coast, hoping to show you quintessential rural Norway.
From our visit to NYC a couple of years ago, across the street from the World Trade Center museum.
I liked how contemporary and turn of the century exist together in this image. It captures how an urban environment is a melding pot of diverse cultures and styles.
Katie here. I know you can hardly stand waiting to hear all about my adventure, but I had to wait until mama trimmed my paws. You know how hard it is to type when your nails are too long.
One of my favorite things to do is hang out under the picnic table. Never know what you’ll find under here.
Plus, we got home from our trip way last Friday but this is the first time I’ve been able to kick mama off her laptop long enough for me to write to all of you.
Sometimes mama forgets I’m the princess.
We had a great view!
But other times, like last week, she does things just for me, like taking me camping in my tent but way up north instead of in my own backyard. I just love doing that. This time we went up into the thumb of Michigan, and camped at a Michigan State Park called Port Crescent.
Mama reserved our site way back in January, so that we could have a spot right on Saginaw Bay. It was awesome. OK, yes when we first arrived on Tuesday afternoon it was a trifle windy. So windy that mama wasn’t sure she’d be able to get the tent up by herself. I told her I wasn’t about to help her, as a princess doesn’t do manual labor.
Mama was hoping for no rain.
She got it up but was afraid to try to put up the rain fly. She said that would be like handling a giant kite in a tornado.
Eventually the wind died down a little, plus it looked like rain, so mama gave it a shot and, using the wind to her advantage, got it up and over the tent. Turns out this made the wind try to lift the whole tent up into the air.
It was really windy, but I wasn’t afraid of those waves!
Mama got out the heavy duty stakes and pounded them deep into the ground.
Then she and I got inside the tent to help hold it down. The wind was amazing, making the tent walls shudder and the waves, only feet away, roar. Then on top of the wind and waves the rain began to pour down. Rain on a tent can be pretty relaxing, but not when it’s coming down sideways!
You want me to help you hold the tent down mama?
It was a pretty noisy night, but I slept through most of it. Mama said she stayed awake shivering and finally put on more socks and long underwear and her winter coat and a hat and mittens so that she could get some sleep around 1 a.m.
Guess mama isn’t built for cold. I thought it was the perfect sleeping temperature.
The next morning the wind had died down, the bay was calm when we ventured out about 5:30. I don’t know why mama was so grumpy, it was beautiful! She should thank me for getting her up to enjoy it.
Early morning blue hour. She would have missed this without me. She never gives me enough credit for the good stuff.
We walked down to a little beach and looked at the water for a bit, then mama said after breakfast we were going to go visit Grindstone City. Well, I don’t know what that is, but I’m always up for an adventure.
A nice morning…but is that fog?
Mama said it was a tiny town up on the very tip of Michigan’s thumb that used to make grindstones, and lots of the old grindstones are still up there scattered around. She’d been there twice before, once with my dad about 10 years ago, and once with her dad so many years ago she can’t count.
She was confident she knew where it was.
Hurry up mama, I think the fog is closing in!
So off we went. First up we visited the marina at Port Austin, the town just up the road. It was really pretty, which, from a princess point of view isn’t always a good thing, cause mama makes me pose in front of a bunch of stuff. All the time. Boring mama!
A pretty spot to sit on a day without fog maybe.
Anyway, while we were there the fog blew in, and it blew in really fast! By the time we left you could hardly see anything. Mama, however, noticed a few barns as we drove further north looking for Grindstone City. She was so busy looking at the barns that she sort of lost track of where she was.
Lots of barns in lush green hills!
At one point she stopped to look at a map. I don’t know why she had to do that. I mean, I asked her, how hard can it be to find the furthest northern point of a thumb? It’s like right there on her hand, right? (Joke mama, joke!)
Mama said she thought we had gone too far in the fog and needed to turn around. So she was looking for a place to do that when she saw a sign for this.
We had this place all to ourselves.
It’s Pointe Aux Barques Lighthouse, built in 1847. In 1849 Catherine Shook became Michigan’s first female lighthouse keeper when her husband drowned. The current structure was built in 1857. It began to rain as we were exploring, so we didn’t stay long, but it was fun to walk around and imagine what it must have been like back in the day. The fog and rain made our imagination even more vivid!
Still, we hadn’t found Grindstone City! Mama referred to her map again and set off confidently. And this time she was right!
Grindstone City must be around here somewhere!
We pulled into town and stopped at one of only a few commercial buildings. Signs said the best ice cream in the world was served there, but it wasn’t open.
No ice cream today!
I wasn’t disappointed cause I never get ice cream anyway. Mama said it was OK because she was too cold and wet for a frozen treat.
Really old.
So we headed off to look for a particular peninsula where she knew there used to be some abandoned grindstones. Plus when she was there with daddy years ago she had thought that I would like to explore it someday. And there, just around another corner was the place she remembered!
This looks interesting mama!
We pulled up and she noted that there were lots and lots of families of Canadian geese, complete with dozens of babies. She told me maybe we wouldn’t be walking out to the end of the point after all, as geese can be pretty aggressive when they’ve got the babies around. But as soon as she got me out of the car they all slid noisily into the water.
Guess they know not to get in the face of a princess.
Let’s get sniffing mama!
So off we went. Mama liked this one tree across the way and spent a lot of time trying to get a shot of it. There were tons of swallows flying and she started laughing cause she couldn’t get a shot of the tree without a bird flying into the image.
A bird flies through the frame.
I was too busy sniffing the ground, looking for grindstones to bother with birds. And way out at the end of the point I found one!
There’s a grindstone out there!
We spent a long time out there, mama found all sorts of things to photograph. And I liked being out in the wind and the fog and the rain. Kind of made my fur curly, but I figure it’s a look. Right?
Right?!
Anyway, by the time we got back to camp I needed to take a long nap. Unfortunately our campsite had a whole bunch of wood chips that liked to stick to my fur. It didn’t bother me, but mama spent a lot of time sweeping out the tent and muttering.
A princess needs her nap.
Wednesday night mama slept in all her clothes including hat and mittens again. She actually googled for nearby hotels but there weren’t any. I, on the other hand, slept great.
Don’t bug me mama.
Thursday morning I managed to let mama sleep until about 6. It was a beautiful morning and she was happy to see what she thought might be sun touching the tops of the trees. And soon we had evidence that finally we were going to have a nice warm sunny day. Perfect for camping even though it was our last day there.
Tall cottonwood trees shaded our site.
We went south a little bit and explored the Albert E Sleeper state park. Mama hadn’t wanted to stay there because their campground is on the other side of the main road. Mama says it’s more fun to be right on the water.
Another park with no one around.
I reminded her it probably would have been warmer at night to be in the woods instead of on the water, but she said the sun on the water Thursday was worth all those nasty nights of shivering.
Sunshine on the water makes us happy.
Whatever mama.
No one was at the Sleeper state park at all. There were lots of trees and it was pretty…
Lots of parking available!
..but there were also lots of signs like this. Which we ignored since no one was there.
Let’s go see what’s over the dune quick before anyone notices!
We walked down to the beach and I got my picture sort of on it…without really touching their precious sand. I figured I’d rather just hang out at my campsite and watch the water instead of worrying about being busted breaking the no dog rule.
So that’s what we did.
Kids and their dog play in front of our site. I stayed dry on shore as befits a princess.
And Thursday night there was the prettiest sunset. The people in the next site brought their kayaks and went out to enjoy the sunset. Of course mama took their picture ( a few dozen pictures actually) and she sent them the best shots yesterday.
A romantic paddle at sunset.
She took a few of me too.
This was a perfect day mama!
And then it was Friday morning and time for us to head home. I was sad, it was going to be another beautiful day and I didn’t want to leave. But mama said camping in the state parks on the weekends is just not fun, too many people, too much noise, and besides, she was sort of missing her bed at home.
You always do this mama! Where is my tent!?!?!
I didn’t understand that exactly, cause I was sleeping in my own bed. Mama brought it with us, per my demand. Doesn’t matter to me where it is as long as mama is nearby.
Anyway mama packed up Friday morning, and I supervised. Then we took the long way home and mama took pictures of a few more barns.
A bird on a barn with a bird.
We made it home in time for dinner, and then mama unpacked the car and did the laundry and put stuff away. I took a nap.
I’m ready for us to go again real soon, but mama says she might need to take a little break. She says it’s nice to sleep without putting on four layers of clothes, and huddle under three blankets. She also enjoys sleeping without sand and wood chips in her bed.
I don’t know why she looks at me when she says that.
I miss my campsite by the water mama!
So that’s the story of my adventure. We had a lot of fun, that last day of sunshine sort of eclipsed all the rain and wind and fog and cold. Almost. I hope our next adventure is a little bit warmer, but not too warm. You know how a sheltie princess enjoys being cool.
Trent hosts a weekly smile blog where he invites people to share something each week that made them smile, then link to his blog so that he can send out a recap on Mondays.
That alone makes me smile.
But this week there are plenty of things I smiled about and it’s hard to choose just one to share. For example, my tree peonies bloomed. Their flowers only last for a day or two and if you’re not quick you’ll miss them all together.
Katie and I were quick this year.
And as you know Katie and I went north for a few days to camp along the shores of Saginaw Bay, on the west side of Michigan’s thumb.
Lots to smile about there.
And this morning I made music with many of my Clarkston Community Band members at the opening of our local Farmers’ Market.
We sat out in a parking lot under the hot sun and played for three hours. It was a blast. I’m pretty sure the top of my feet are sunburned even though I put unscreen on, but at least that will be proof we’ve finally moved into summer arsound here. Another reason to smile!
Katie says she wants to tell you all about our camping trip, so you’ll have to wait just a little bit for that. She’s a slow typist lately. She blames me because I haven’t trimmed her feet in awhile and the extra long fur tends to obscure the keyboard.
Oh! And on our drive up there and back I got to see a lot of barns! You know how that makes me smile!
So let me count. The flowers in the garden, the trip up north, camping, barns, music…it’s just too much to number! What have you smiled about this week? Write a blog and link it to Trent’s and we’ll all be able to smile together.
Change Is Hard 