There’s a lot going on in the world right now. Unrest across the globe, a different sort of unrest here at home in the US. Every evening I turn the news on with trepidation, afraid of what I will likely see and hear.
But once a week, on Tuesday night, I get to play music with a bunch of other folks in our local community band. It’s not always stress free. There’s the normal pressure to put together a quality concert, and finding time to practice at home so as not to waste the precious time we have together. And because I’m one of two band librarians there’s additional responsibility too.
But all of that worry and stress slides away when you’re actually making music at your concert. All the musicians show up dressed in concert black, the big, round sound we make together is beautiful, the audience is appreciative. Suddenly all that work becomes worthwhile.
Last night we kicked off our season with a combined concert. The community band played the first half, and the Stardusters dance band followed up, completing the evening.
It was a lot of fun.
Our audience wasn’t big, and I feel sad for those people that didn’t come out. They missed a wonderful evening of fun music and smiles. And donut holes and cider afterward.
To be honest the world could use more fun music and smiles. And I bet, if you’re anything like me, stressing over the state of world and national affairs, you could use some too. My advice is to google ‘fun stuff to do in my town’ and see what you can find. I bet there’s a community group putting together a play or a concert near you.
The holidays are coming, there’s almost certainly going to be live music galore. Make sure you don’t miss it. It’s good for the soul, it supports your local artists and musicians, and it’s definitely worth missing one evening of nightly news.
Where to go for my Walktober, where to go? It’s been weighing on my mind.
I’ve done so many, taken you to visit all my local favorites, some of them multiple times. You and I have walked in Detroit along the riverfront, and in my own backyard, and on the beach of Lake Michigan.
This year I wanted to take you somewhere we hadn’t been before, so how about Tawas State Park? It’s on the eastern side of Michigan, on Lake Huron and only about three hours from me. Plus it’s ‘up north’ so it’s just got to be beautiful by definition.
I decided to do a combination walk and drive for this annual Walktober post. That way you’ll get to see the most stuff from my 6 hour adventure.
I left on the spur of the moment, last Sunday afternoon, after I had attended a Fun Run rally competition with Penny. It was our first together and deserves a whole post to itself. Let’s just say after that experience I needed a good, long, pretty drive.
Without a puppy.
Initially the trees weren’t that colorful, mostly yellow, and I was concerned that I had missed the show. But as I got further north, and stopped at a little roadside park, I noticed things were looking a bit better.
And by the time I could actually see Lake Huron the color was starting to pop!
When I got into the park I noticed there were a lot of cars in the lot given it’s definitely off season. But as I climbed over the low dune to the beach I could see why.
The place was crawling with kite boarders!
I walked on the beach for a bit, braving the brisk wind and blowing sand, watching the kiteboarding folks skim over and above the waves.
That was fun, and made for some challenging photography, but I had planned on walking the birding path I’d heard about, up near the lighthouse. So I headed over that way.
The wind was so brisk that I doubted I’d see any birds, but I stubbornly headed up the path because that was why I had come!
It led me right up to the Lighthouse, which was pretty, but I wasn’t, for some reason, excited about exploring that.
I kept along the birding trail, never hearing or seeing a bird of any kind. In fact the trail was becoming quite boring. Then I spotted a narrow footpath heading back through the beach grass.
That was definitely more my style. The wind had played sculpture with the day’s footprints, and I liked how the lowering sun made the sand look, so I stopped for a moment to take a picture on my way back to the shore.
Coming off the dune and back onto the beach I saw there were even more kiteboarders riding the wind.
And I couldn’t help but notice how the sun made the water silver.
Up ahead of me was a little spit of land, poking out into Lake Huron. Last time, more than 15 years ago, when I’d been on this beach there had been many, longer spits of sand, but this year there was only this one that I could see.
If you stood at the base of it you could see the water being blown into shore from both sides. I thought the combination of waves, light and sand was just beautiful.
But what about the kiteboarders, you say? What were they doing as the wind kicked up higher and the sun began to descend?
Well, they were doing what kiteboarders do. They were racing back and forth across the water and leaping high above the waves.
It was sooo much fun to watch.
But after awhile I realized I needed to head home, even though I was having too much fun watching all the action. So I said goodbye to the lighthouse and Tawas State Park and got back on the road.
But wait! Is that the end of my Drive/Walktober? Is that all there was to see? Well of course not! There’s still that three hour drive through farmland on the way home. What do you think I’ll see?
Here’s a hint:
Well, this is getting long. Maybe you better take a break now, at intermission so to speak. Or get a coffee. At least stretch a little.
I’ll wait.
Welcome back to Part II of my 2024 Drive/Walktober. On US 23 the trees were glorious. So pretty I had to stop a few times and pull over to admire them.
And the folks that live here? I’m only a little jealous of the fact they live among all those beautiful trees while looking out the back of their house at Lake Huron!
Of course I had to turn off US 23 a few times because I saw pretty barns in the distance. In the fall sunlight they were even more beautiful than they’d be in the summer at noon.
And sometimes it was just the light on a field that caught my eye.
But to be honest it was mostly the barn.
Or sometimes an old house…
…or the sign at an abandoned speedway.
I turned around to get that image. I just couldn’t NOT!
I had to go around a few blocks to get back to this grain elevator too. Something about an old truck under the grain chute.
So that is the end of my Drive/Walktober. Almost. By the time I shot the old truck it was getting late. The sun was definitely on a quicker slant to the horizon. Plus I had to go to the bathroom. So I stopped at the Bay City rest area. And there, I found the most magical ending to my Walktober adventure.
I bet just about anything that this last image made you smile. It did me then and it does today. After all that driving and walking and shooting I found my image in a rest stop on the way home.
Isn’t that just the way it goes.
If you have a Walktober in mind, go out and take a few pictures (or a lot) and post your blog linking to the original post about Walktobers and I’ll gather them all in early November and share them all with everybody!
Not only have there been lots of colorful lights in our night skies, there’s also been a comet. Or so I’m told. It’s not the kind of comet that shines brightly in the sky, it’s more reticent than that. Less showy.
Hanging out on a country road waiting for dark.
Of course that makes it all the more alluring for night photographers, professional and armature alike. I went out on two successive nights to try to find the comet.
The moon came up as the sun went down.
The first night neighbors and I met on a dirt road outside of town with an unrestricted view to the west. It should have been perfect. But though we stood out there, eyes turned toward the sky, scanning back and forth for over an hour we didn’t see it. We did however figure out we needed a heavier coat, hat and gloves if we were ever to do this again.
Over processed image to show you how big the moon was that night, rising in the east.
Oh, it was there all right — plenty of people posted images from that night. But we didn’t see it. Perhaps it wasn’t dark enough where we stood. Perhaps those clouds hanging low on the horizon obscured our view. Perhaps the nearly full moon rising behind us as the sun set was to blame.
Or maybe it was all of that combined. Regardless, we headed home empty handed. And very cold.
Nope. No comet that night.
The next evening I met a fellow Milky Way student out at my favorite park, where we planned to show her daughter the birds that come down to eat out of people’s hands, and then head to a dark place along the lake to look for the comet.
Scouting potential comet viewing locations, I ran across some color.
Before we even headed out to look for the birds we got to see other flying things.
It was a beautiful evening for a flight.
I rarely head out to feed the birds in late evening, but we tried. She did get a few birds to come down from their sleepy roosts to get a bedtime snack, but not many.
A sleeping mourning dove. He declined to come down for a snack.
We didn’t see many birds that evening, but we did see other things flying.
What is this, anyway?
Though at first we weren’t quite sure what it was.
A perfect night for this.
Meanwhile, my friend’s daughter’s new best friend was a chipmunk who stuffed himself with seeds, ran off to deposit them some safe place for later and ran right back to get more seed multiple times. I think he has enough provisions to get him through the winter now.
Did I hear you have a snack for me?
As we were driving to our chosen comet viewing location we noticed the big orange moon was rising. I made a hard, quick right and we pulled in along a couple dozen other photographers, focused on the beautiful rising moon.
It was really much prettier than this.
You’ll have to take my word for it. It was bright orange and rising up above the trees, reflecting in the lake. I didn’t have my camera set up for a moon shot, it wasn’t on a tripod. As I was messing with all of that the moment passed, as it does so often in photography.
The moon was sooooo beautiful that night, even if we never found that comet I knew I’d still be happy.
As the sky turned red and then darkened we hurried to the spot we hoped would be perfect for comet viewing. A beach, deserted, gave us a perfect view of the night sky. But where was that comet?
Another sunset, another night of searching for the comet.
We had come armed with instructions from other, successful, comet photographers — descriptions of where it was in the sky, how many degrees from this star or that formation. We tried it all, pointing our cameras in all sorts of directions, hoping.
And then my friend’s 22 year old daughter, bored with the old folks and their expensive equipment, raised her phone to the sky, shot one image and said…”It’s right there.”
Do you see it? It’s right there!
And bingo. Knowing exactly where to shoot, even though we couldn’t see it, made all the difference. We couldn’t even see it in our images, unless we zoomed way in. So we might have gotten shots of it and not even known, would never have known, without the young women’s gift.
It’s long tail extended, flying right over our heads all this time.
So there you have it. The comet who’s name I can’t pronounce or even spell. The elusive, sneaky, fading comet who will be back to visit in a mere 80,000 years. Or is it 800,000?
Sunrise, sunset, the time slips away.
I’ll have those camera settings down by then. How about you?
We have been so lucky, up here in Michigan, (and sometimes all the way down to Georgia!) to be able to see the Northern Lights quite frequently this past summer and into fall.
May 2024, somewhere in Michigan farm country.
Of course even if the lights are dancing, the weather doesn’t always cooperate. Lots of evenings the skies are obstructed with clouds and you can only dream about what might be happening up there.
May 10, 2024.
And of course you have to actually go outside to a dark place to see them. And even then you mostly can’t see them with your naked eyes, you need your phone or a camera to get a better view.
Amazing color in May.
In May there was a huge aurora storm above us and I was lucky enough to take my sister and head north to see them. We ended up on a random dirt road in front of a farmer’s house shooting the amazing lights as they danced across the sky.
More of the May experience.
Last weekend there was some evidence that a big light storm would be arriving, but night after night nothing happened. Then Wednesday night, with clouds rolling in, people in my general area were starting to post pictures they’d taken from their own yards of colorful northern lights.
I leapt out of bed, and headed to my own back yard. There were clouds, but enough open spaces that I saw this.
October 6, from my yard looking over my neighbor’s house.
It wasn’t beautiful, no special location, the lights of my neighbor’s house spread across the image. But I saw them. I saw them in my own backyard without driving across the state.
I was thrilled.
I was especially thrilled because I took that shot with my phone, and had only just learned how to use my phone at night. My regular camera had been shipped back to Nikon as a trade-in for a new version of the Z series.
Thursday of last week my new camera arrived, and coincidently notices of potential northen lights grew louder and louder as the day went on.
I tried to learn all the differences between the new camera and what I was used to using. And when it got dark I went over to Katie’s park and set up near her pond.
I was hoping for color reflected in the pond…but a layer of invasive plants covered the surface of the water.
I was not disappointed. There was a definite pink tinge to the northern sky.
It wasn’t always bright, but it was pretty and surrounded the Big Dipper.
There were obnoxious lights in the parking lot, and I lowered my tripod as low as I could to minimize the light pollution.
But mostly I just watched the sky. As my eyes adjusted I could tell the lights were there, but I couldn’t see much. Sometimes I could see a few pillars of light.
Sometimes the colors obscured the stars.
And once I turned the camera over to the east a bit, because I thought maybe something was there. But looking on the back of the camera, I didn’t see anything interesting, so I turned it back to the pond.
See that green waving at me from over there on the right?
I was wrong. There were actually green waves over there, but I didn’t see them until I processed the images days later.
I was out there from 8 until shortly after 9. I wasn’t prepared with hand warmers, or a hat or gloves. You wouldn’t have thought you’d need them, but on this clear night as the moon came up behind me, the air chilled.
The lights began to fad. I didn’t realize the green was ramping up.
By 9 I was cold and my husband and I ambled back to the car under the fading colors that still filled the sky. I went to bed and dreamed about starry nights and dancing lights. In the morning I found out that Mother Nature has a sense of humor, because she put up a magnificent light show with curtains of color that started about 10. While I was sleeping.
Yep.
In order to really see the northern lights you need to prepare, take warm clothes, bring extra batteries, some snacks, a chair and your good camera and on top of all that, hope for clear skies.
When I got home I went out back and took a picture of the moon. Because it was beautiful too.
And if all that lines up…you’re gonna see a real show!
I’m not disappointed, I was so happy to be out there at all. I’m thrilled to have had the experience and to share it with my husband.
Right overhead, in May.
But I’m secretly hoping to get one more chance this season.
My sister and I spent our days exploring Michigan’s eastern UP the last week of August, but we spent our nights looking for clear skies. We were on a mission to capture the Milky Way over interesting stuff, in particular over the Upper Falls at Tahquamenon State Park.
A view of the falls from along the path, taken during our morning research for the night time adventure.
I’d seen images done by other photographers and I figured what the heck, how hard could it be. Right?
We’d made the recognizance trek back to the falls, and down the 94 steps to the viewing platform during the day. We’d check the position the Milky Way would likely be over the falls, using my hand dandy phone compass. We’d strategized how the whole even would go down, including talking to rangers ahead of time so they’d know where we were.
From the viewing platform.
Still, as we parked in the giant, but empty, parking lot after dark that second night of clear skies I was worried, as I always am, about what could go wrong. As we sat there waiting for it to be dark enough headlights came up the long driveway toward us.
“DARN!” I said (well maybe not that exact word).
These stairs are easier to maneuver in daylight.
I’m never happy to have other people around when we start out on a night mission, unless I know who they are. The truck went on past us and parked in front of the bathrooms. The park rangers were there to clean up the facility after the day of tourism.
Now I was in another quandary. I didn’t want to walk up on them and startle them. So we waited until they were done, and on their way out they stopped to talk to us, wanting to know what we were doing. The lady ranger recognized me from our earlier discussion and told us to have fun and be careful.
Yep lots of water falling off that ledge.
So with an official blessing my sister and I packed up our gear and began the long walk back to the falls. It’s not really that difficult, given what most people have to do to get to scenic places, the trail is paved and pretty level as long as you watch for the occasional tree root.
The path winds along the ridge above the falls, flat and wide.
Still, by then it was pitch black. Do you know that noises are scientifically louder when heard in a dark woods vs. in your own driveway? It’s a fact. Anyway, we made it back to the long set of stairs and picked our way very carefully down to the viewing platform.
The first thing I noticed once we were down there, other than that the roar was very loud, was how much mist was blowing off the falls. And that it was blowing right at us.
I had my sister turn on her flashlight so I could see how much mist was flying. Turns out it was a lot.
But there was the Milky Way, exactly where we figured it would be, right above the falls. To our eyes it looked great. I could imagine just how it was going to look through my camera lens.
Except for this darn railing that is just about the same height as the top height my tripod will go. And I need to shoot in portrait (vertical) to get the Milky Way and the falls in a single shot. Which put the railing smack dab in the middle of the frame.
Oh…and I forgot to turn off my red flashlight too.
How annoying. I dabbed at the mist on my lens and considered that maybe I could shoot from a lower perspective, between the rails.
I was struggling with the composition so much that I didn’t spend any time on focus.
The noise from the falls and the waves of mist washed over me as I reconfigured the tripod and tried sitting down to shoot.
Seriously this was not going well. Then I tried holding the camera on the top railing manually, even though I knew that was ridiculous and there’s no way I could hold it steady for 20 seconds. In what felt like a monsoon.
I really needed a taller, more steady tripod. In fact at one point the whole tripod tipped over and somehow, some way, I managed to grab a leg in the dark before the whole thing fell over.
And I need to be there on a clear night when there is less mist. I wonder if that’s even possible?
Maybe I should find a spot over the LOWER falls.
And mostly I need to learn how to do panoramas, because if I could have shot the top of the Milky Way in landscape (horizontal) slices, down to the falls I could have stitched it all together into one really pretty image.
Or so I’m told. I haven’t done those segments of my class yet. I guess this is the winter to buckle down and learn that stuff while the Milky Way is resting, so that when she wakes back up next spring I’ll be ready.
EventuallyI had to focus on just the stars, and even then we were getting soggy from the mist.
So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you zero great images of the Milky Way over the Upper Falls at Tahquamenon State Park. But don’t be discouraged. I plan to try again after I do more learning and more research.
I guess the Milky Way over the Upper Falls just wasn’t in the stars for me that night. (You see what I did there?)
But we will be back, if nothing else because walking into the dark woods and then walking out a little damp but none the worse for wear was a thrill in itself!
You might find us just about anywhere!
I hope you all come along with us on our next adventure!
We went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan during a very specific week in August, a week when the moon wasn’t filling the sky with light, in order to capture the dark skies there and the Milky Way hanging high overhead.
I concentrated on driving, my sister took the pictures as we went over the bridge.
The season for Milky Way core shooting is coming to an end. Soon it won’t rise high enough for us to see it, and we’ll have to be content with the memories of magical clear nights filled with stars. Because certainly that’s what it’s always like when you’re out under the stars shooting the Milky Way. Right?
Sure it is.
Under the bridge before we drove over it.
So that Monday at the end of August my sister and I packed the car and drove all the way up from southeastern Michigan, across the Mackinaw Bridge and into the interior of the eastern part of the Upper Peninsula.
That’s Mackinaw Island over there.
We set up camp and then decided we’d head up to Whitefish Point for the sunset. And, if we were lucky, a bit of Milky Way practice too.
Lots of families had spent the day at the beach.
The Milky Way core rises early in the night at this time of year, so all we had to do was wait for it to get dark. The minutes ticked by slowly as the light faded and many families came in from the beach, packed their kids and stuff into their cars, and drove away.
This is a uniquely built lighthouse.
But many other people were still out on the beach as the skies darkened, slow to leave Lake Superior and a day filled with sunshine, splashing in the lake, and looking for that special rock.
The day’s light fades.
According to what I could find online the Milky Way would be visible around 10:15. By 9:45 we were getting tired of waiting and I climbed out of the car to do a test shot from the parking lot to see if it was there.
If you look at this in a dark room and make it bigger you’ll see satellites flying all through the sky.
Unfocused and with no composition to speak of, the image is over exposed on purpose so I didn’t have to wait 25 seconds just to see what was up there. We were very excited to see that the Milky Way was indeed hanging over our heads.
So off to the beach we went. We had planned to shoot from down near the water, but there were hundreds of biting flies down there. I felt more comfortable up on the boardwalk where the night breezes kept the flies at bay.
Over exposed on purpose again, just to get a quick image to see where the Milky Way was in relationship to the lighthouse.
Besides, this wasn’t meant to be our real night photography session. We’d come up to Tahquamenon Falls State park to shoot the Milky Way over the falls. This was just a practice session, nothing really important.
Once I established where the Milky Way was, and got the stars in focus, I settled in to get a serious shot. But there were still people walking up from the beach, flashlights shining on random things. Car taillights and headlights were shining on the lighthouse when you least expected it.
The red from car taillights lit up the side of the lighthouse. And of course the lighthouse beacon made plenty of light too.
Not to mention the actual light from the lighthouse which every 14 seconds would blast two times. My sister counted the seconds for me as I tried to avoid the light. Though to be honest the beacon light looked kind of cool on the back of the camera and I didn’t mind it so much at all.
But then there was that red light near the bottom of the frame. I couldn’t tell what it was, while looking through the lens, but the camera was definitely picking something up. It was annoying, and meant that I really needed to limit myself to the top portion of the lighthouse.
Easy enough to crop out that bit of red at the bottom. Turns out it was an exit light inside, above a door, that filled the room with red light.
And as I focused on the sky above the lighthouse there were, of course, planes to contend with. You can take a series of images, all in a row, and then ‘stack’ them in a software program and the parts of the images that aren’t the same will be removed. So I took 7 or 8 images, and if I wanted to I could stack them and all the planes and satellites would be eliminated.
Or…you could just say, that’s cool, look at all the stuff up there in the sky!
Well, I got the shot without the beacon, but there was a plane flying through the Milky Way.
I didn’t take a lot of images that night. I probably should have gone down to the beach and worked on my original composition plan. It was a warm, beautiful night. But we were both tired from a long day and this was just a practice shoot anyway.
A car’s headlights lit up the side of the lighthouse, but I sort of like this one.
Right?
In the end I liked a couple of the images. And I’ll definitely go back on another clear, warm night. A night with a breeze to keep the flies away. Maybe a night earlier in the season when the Milky Way will be visible later in the night and fewer people will be around with their flashlights and headlights.
The northern end of the Milky Way, right over our heads. So many stars, such a lovely night.
And of course I still had the Milky Way shoot above Tahquamenon Falls to look forward to. This was just a practice session, remembering how to focus and camera settings and stuff. But you’ll have to wait to see how that one turned out. I haven’t processed those images yet.
Heck, just retelling the story of our very long first day in the UP has exhausted me! But I hope you enjoyed your short trip to Whitefish Point on a warm August night!
The last week of August my sister and I planned on traveling to South Dakota for a little vacation. Why South Dakota you ask? Well…I have a friend there who lives on a ranch and the skies are really dark. Exactly the perfect sort of place for night sky photography. So we arranged to spend a few days there, watching the sky by night and exploring the area by day.
Our campsite had lots of shade. And mud.
But the title of this post is “Camping in the UP” you say? How does that relate to South Dakota?
Well, sometimes life gets in the way of plans, and it turns out we needed to be closer to home this year. Luckily Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Michigan’s UP had just reopened after some bathroom renovations and there were lots of open camp sites.
I snagged one and we adjusted our plans.
The upper falls and late summer goldenrod.
There’s so much to see in the eastern part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, so we used the campsite as a home base and set out exploring. On our very first day we stopped by the Tahquamenon Upper Falls AND Whitefish Point!
Lots of people out at Whitefish point at sunset were looking for Yooper Light rocks.
And that’s after driving all the way up there, across the Mackinaw Bridge and deep into the northern woods. It was a long day, but we had beautiful, hot, blue sky kind of weather.
The next day at Whitefish point the weather was decidedly different.
And in Michigan you know not to waste a second of it! It could all change tomorrow! And of course it did.
When it was cold and windy outside we did the museums instead of the beach.
It was still cold and windy the third day when we visited Grand Marais. Usually the stone picking there is spectacular, but it was so windy we didn’t stay on the beach long.
There were people out there looking for rocks. We were not those people.
We did end up at the local diner for some lunch.
A nod to nostalgia on a cold afternoon.
And on the last full day of our trip we explored the coast of Lake Superior, heading east along the Byway to Sable Falls…
The short trail back to Sable Falls includes over 300 stairs. Just a heads up.
…and Point Iroquois Lighthouse.
Such a beautiful place.
We had a beautiful day and found some beautiful rocks to remind us of our trip.
Thursday was a wonderfully warm day, perfect for sitting near the water.
We explored the back roads and found a unique bakery.
Wonderful baked goods out in the middle of nowhere.
And then we had lunch at a sunny little inland lake before we headed back to camp for our last night.
So peaceful!
We enjoyed a last fire at our campsite before we turned in for the evening. It would be an early morning the next day if we were to beat predicted rain and get camp packed while things were still dry.
Of course we had to have one last s’more too.
And then it was time to head back home.
Early morning light on our empty campsite. Bye site 171!
Oh…what about night sky photography? Did we get any of that done?
Some of the lower falls on the Tahquamenon River.
Well. I guess you’ll have to tune in to find out. But what do you think?
Sitting at the dinner table last night I was watching the birds come for their own suppers. I had spread some black oilers on the deck railing and refreshed their bath water in anticipation of watching them while we ate.
Hmmm….who’s this little lady?
The fresh water was a big draw as any number of birds showed up for a quick bath. Then this bird arrived. She didn’t look like any of my regulars.
Well, she likes oilers, that’s a clue.
Bigger than a gold finch, about the size of a warbler, but not a yellow warbler.
She kept an eye on me but didn’t budge.
Greenish gold with darker wings and a little tuft on white near her shoulder.
After she ate she hopped on over to the bathing area.
Luckily my camera was right behind me on the kitchen counter, and the bird wasn’t upset by my reaching for it.
One by one she told the bathing birds to get lost.
All these shots are through a window, with reflections splashed across the image.
Then she hopped in for her own bath.
I think, based on my Michigan bird book, it’s a female Evening Grosbeak.
She had a nice, long bath.
We’re not supposed to have them around here, though they were here a couple of winters ago. Mostly they live way up north. So it could be something else.
Change Is Hard 