travel | Change Is Hard

October 5, 2023
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

We can’t stop now

Long time readers know that my dad was killed by a tired trucker almost twenty years ago and I and members of my family volunteer with the Truck Safety Coalition, working to make our roads safer.

TSC is based in Washington DC, but has families of volunteers all across the country. Of course it does, because truck crashes aren’t restricted to ‘somewhere else’ like we all want to believe.

Truck crashes happen anywhere and to anyone.

*Flags at half mast for Senator Feinstein.*

It takes money to keep our organization going, to pay our small staff, to help families come to DC for conferences or important meetings, to pay for grief counseling for those that want that help, to run the website that provides information to new families, and where we post our stories about the loved ones we lost and about the lives changed forever for those injured in crashes with trucks.

It takes money.

And it’s not so easy to raise money for our cause. Organizations that might have sympathy for our families, like truck part manufacturers, can’t be seen associating with us, because many of the truck companies they sell parts to are so often on the other side of our arguments. Trailer manufacturers sell to truck companies too and steer clear of us, as do some road safety equipment manufacturers and many others.

It’s hard to explain that we aren’t anti truck, we support safe trucking. It’s important to remember that truck drivers die in crashes too, and that driving a truck is one of the most dangerous jobs in our country.

*The halls of Congress where we look for support for safety.*

A lot of our funding comes from individuals who have had family or friends injured or killed as well as survivors of truck crashes. The people that have already paid the price for unsafe policies and regulations continue to pay in an effort to make things better.

Every single family will tell you they continue to tell their stories, continue to come to meetings, continue to donate because they don’t want another family to experience a truck crash. Every single family comes to TSC with the same wish in their hearts.

To make it stop.

*The Washington Monument during a walk after our event.*

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that over 5,700 people died in truck related crashes in 2021, the latest year from which we have data. That’s a 71% increase since 2009. Truck crashes are trending the wrong way. More people are being killed every year. And injuries are going up too, over 155,000 are injured every year.

Think about that. Every single year 155,000 people are injured in truck crashes. Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions, has 65,000 seats. Every year 2.3 football stadiums of people are injured in truck crashes. And the numbers keep climbing.

So this past weekend my husband and I traveled, on our own dime, to DC where we attended an evening of celebration of those that have contributed to TSC. Donors, safety advocates, board members, friends and supporters gathered together to recognize some very special people who, during this past year, have gone above and beyond to move our mission to make our roads safer going forward.

*All waiting for something. Just like us.*

It was a good evening and we raised some money. We felt warm and happy with our effort, but don’t think I won’t be asking you for support this November during Giving Tuesday. Because 5,700+ people died in 2021, and it will likely be a larger number for 2022 and 2023. Whole football stadiums of people are being injured. We can’t stop now.

*Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton graciously speaks to our group.*

Thank you in advance for supporting me, for the dollars you donate whenever I ask, for your emotional support when I’m having a meltdown, or when I’m just missing my dad. Thank you for letting me get on my soapbox once in awhile, and for not turning away when I tell you about really sad things that make me (and many of you) really angry.

*The Capitol at the end of another busy day.*

Last weekend was a time of celebration, but now it’s time to get back to work. We’re trying to get the speed limiter past the finish line at the DOT, and we’re working on getting Automatic Emergency Brakes in all trucks sooner rather than later. And don’t get me started on the minimum liability insurance issue. Or those companies that want longer trailers, and the ability to haul heavier loads. There are already triple trailers on some of our nation’s roads and we’re keeping watch so they don’t get permission to move onto more.

*Passing a triple trailer truck on the Pennsylvania turnpike.*

We need to keep holding our fingers in the truck safety dike. And we need money to do that.

*Flowers from our event, simple yet beautiful.*

August 21, 2023
by dawnkinster 24 Comments

The adventure continues

Time is marching on, faster and faster, and if I don’t write this post now I will begin to forget all the fun stuff we did on our four night camping trip in Ontario Canada, on the shores of beautiful Lake Huron.

*The beach in downtown Kincardine. It reminded me of the beach on a Caribbean island.*

We were able to stay two nights at Point Farms Provincial Park, but they were booked for the weekend, so we planned on packing up Friday morning and moving to our next reserved campsite at MacGregor Provincial Park about an hour north, beyond the town of Kincardine, where the bagpipe parade would happen on Saturday evening.

*The beach at Point Farms, early in the morning.*

Very early Friday morning the sound of the lake roaring woke us. We hadn’t heard the lake from our site during any part of our two day stay, but Friday morning it was obvious something was going on.

Both of us popped out of our tents and said, “Is that the lake??” Then we scurried down the long set of stairs to the beach to see what there was to see.

The sun was just getting high enough in the sky to start illuminating the water and there were pretty little puffy clouds turning pink along the horizon.

We spent a long time wandering the beach and taking pictures. Good thing we had until 3 to vacate our site!

Eventually we went back up to the campsite and began to pack.

*Didn’t count the steps, best not to know how many.*

Normally it takes about an hour to get everything stowed in the car. It takes longer than that if everything is kind of wet, which it was.

But we only had to go about an hour north, so no worries. Plus there were lots and lots of pretty barns between where we were and where we were going to be.

I guess I’ll show you those in a separate post, there were so many!

*Well, OK, here’s one of the pretty barns we saw that day.*

Finally we arrived at Kincardine, but we were too early to check into MacGregor Provincial Park and our site. So we explored the town’s beach, watching beautiful sailboats and clouds move at the horizon…

*A steady wind caused both the boat and the clouds to move right along.*

…and a very large boat come into the marina….

*The boat’s name was 2nd Seabatical, and it was from Houston.*

….and of course we saw the town’s lighthouse.

*The photogenic lighthouse next to the marina.*

Kincardine is another pretty town, and we enjoyed walking on the beach…

…and eating a quick lunch sitting on a bench along the boardwalk watching people and their dogs.

*We talked to this doggy grandma about her dogs and the town of Kincardine.*

Eventually we made our way to McGregor Provincial Park.

*This is a giant bat house near the ranger office. They said no bats lived in it, they chose to live somewhere else. Silly bats.*

This park had sites tucked in among the trees and brush, so there was quite a bit of privacy, though noise from other sites certainly carried over to us.

*Setting up at our very nice site, which was surrounded by poison ivy.*

We explored the park; the beach that didn’t allow dogs…

….and the beach allowing dogs. The dog beach was definitely the better choice.

And then we walked out to the end of sunset point, to consider whether that might be a prime stargazing location. It seemed promising.

*Friday afternoon out on Sunset Point. There would be no stars that night.*

But we were really there to see the bagpipe parade, the parade that had sparked this entire trip. So… did we find the parade? Well of course we did! Even better, as we walked into the park where the bagpipers were congregating, we met Quinton, a beautiful little sheltie boy and his owner.

*Quinton showing off his tricks and getting a treat, of course.*

We had a great conversation with Quinton’s dad, learning some of the history of Kincardine, what the winters were like (not as snowy as they used to be), why the parade route was altered (Queen street was being dug up to replace ancient pipes underneath), our mutual love of shelties (he had 2 before Quinton, one died of kidney failure at age 7), and where to stand to get the best view of the parade.

Then we went to listen to the bagpipes warm up, talked to one of the pipers and headed over to the parade route, smiling in anticipation.

The sun was setting over Lake Huron as the pipers began to march and play.

It was pretty magical, though odd, as they marched down the street for a block, then did a complicated turn and marched back up the block again, then turned and marched part of the way down again.

I hope when Queen Street is opened again they might be able to march further in one direction. I imagine they hope so too.

*They do this every Saturday evening all summer!*

After the ‘parade’ the musicians moved to the center of the park, formed a big circle and played for the several hundred members of the appreciative audience that had settled on chairs and picnic tables.

*It felt like the whole town turned out.*

Kids played in the grass, neighbors caught up on their personal news, extended families gathered, people nodded and tapped their toes to the music. It was a beautiful evening of community togetherness.

*Even the lighthouse showed up to give high fives!*

My sister and I were both smiling as we made our way back down to the beach where we had parked. Mission accomplished, we’d seen the bagpipe parade, the event that spurred this entire trip.

*One of many beautiful buildings on our walk back to the car.*

But….would there finally be stars on this, Saturday night, our last night in Canada?

I guess you’ll have to wait and see.

August 17, 2023
by dawnkinster 22 Comments

Follow the yellow brick homes

Terri over at Second Wind Leisure Perspectives has challenged us to post about all things yellow. This works out perfectly for me because I’m just home from four days spent camping in Canada, where one thing became very obvious — some time in the last century building beautiful homes out of yellow brick was a thing.

We were driving up highway 21 through small towns along the eastern coast of Lake Huron and every town had a lot of yellow brick houses. They were all beautiful, big or small.

Some were out in the country.

Many were along shady streets in town.

The town of Kincardine had so many of these beauties along one street that we just had to park and walk a few blocks admiring the houses and their gardens.

I’ve traveled in Canada a few times and have always noticed how beautiful their gardens are. On this street almost every house had flowers in full bloom from the front porch to the street.

I’ve got lots to show you from our four day camping/bagpiping/starry night trip, but I still have lots of images to sort through.

Bur I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to show you yellow from a Canadian point of view. I hope you enjoyed seeing these beautiful homes.

If you ever get a chance to drive up the eastern shore of Lake Huron you’ll find the same thing we did; friendly, happy people, cute little towns and stunning landscapes.

I’ll show you more soon.

September 15, 2022
by dawnkinster 35 Comments

Flight 93

We detoured, yesterday, from our drive to Washington DC, in order to visit the Flight 93 Memorial.

*I recommend* visiting in the late afternoon when the light is warm.

We had two phones, the car’s navigational system and a Garmin with us. Each provide different instructions. We ended up circling up and down and around the hills in which the memorial sits. It’s beautiful country but after about an hour of driving, always within 5 minutes of our destination, we were pretty frustrated.

Part of the problem is that there’s an old entrance that isn’t open anymore and some of our technical tools wanted to go there…and so we did. The other part of the problem is a distinct lack of signage for the new entrance.

*Located on a small hill planted in wildflowers.*

But eventually we made it, as the sun was starting to lower in a sky filled with big puffy grey and white clouds.

*Eight columns holding the heavy chimes.*

Our first stop was windchimes tower, dedicated to the 40 people on the plane that died September 11th, 2001 when the passengers put Flight 93 into the ground rather than allow themselves to be weapons aimed for the US Capitol.

*There are 40 different wind chimes, each with a distinct sound.*

The chimes are beautiful, but only play when the wind is at least 12 mph, and though it was getting breezy it wasn’t windy enough to hear more than one low tone.

*Once in awhile there was a gust of wind.*

Then we went on to the visitor center which is built into a huge concrete structure that draws you along that last flight path, and deposits you on a platform overlooking the final crash site of the plane.

It’s a beautiful field now, filled with wildflowers and birds. In the late afternoon light it glows.

*The white is a tent left up after this week’s anniversary. The farm over on the hillside witnessed the crash.*

We drove down to the lower area, and walked the pathway back to the wall of names. Along the way were some mementos in a space designed to collect them.

The names etched into the wall were heartbreaking, as were the pictures there, and the flowers.

We were visiting only three days after the 21st anniversary of the attack, so the flowers were freshly poignant.

We spent a long time wandering the grounds. It was so peaceful with hardly anyone else there.

Yet I couldn’t help but look back up at the visitor center, built along the flight path and imagine what it must have been like that day. What it sounded like, what it smelled like. What it looked like.

There are photos, of course, of the aftermath. But I don’t think they convey the total horror that must have confronted the emergency workers when they arrived.

*Hard to imagine this place as it must have been that day.*

I imagine the field was a beautiful place before the plane dropped out of the sky.

And it’s a beautiful place again, a fitting tribute to the forty heroes of Flight 93.

*Evening light comforts as another day slips away.*

After I wrote this a friend provided a link to Sunday Morning’s piece on the Flight 93 National Memorial. It’s a short piece that will explain more about the tower and the site.

September 4, 2022
by dawnkinster 21 Comments

Waiting on the Milky Way

So what does a person do all day while waiting for true dark to arrive? Besides nap that is.

Well, on the one day the skies were clear while I was in the UP I wandered the Manistique waterfront looking for other things to photograph while impatiently urging the sun to hurry up and sink.

*If you zoom in you might be able to read about the lighthouse.*

The mouth of the Manistique River was being dredged so I watched that for awhile. It was sort of interesting, but you can only watch so many piles of mud being moved before you have to move on.

*Scoop after scoop of muck was dug up from the river bottom and poured into the barge.*

I couldn’t resist walking out on the causeway leading to the shiny red lighthouse. It was such a pretty day.

*A wide cement walkway made the trip out there easy to navigate.*

I spent quite a bit of time out there waiting for the sun to go down. And watching the light glint off the water.

A couple of guys were fishing but they hid behind the lighthouse for me to get some shots.

*All metal, it can withstand some nasty weather. But none was forecast while I was there.*

But as the sun lowered I came back into shore.

*The flowers glowed, loosestrife, an invasive, and goldenrod.*

The evening light makes everything so pretty.

*The last bit of light before the magic begins.*

And then, slowly, slowly, the sun sank and the blue hour began.

*Let’s take a walk down this boardwalk.*

Earlier in the day I had scoped out a place to set up, hoping that the Milky Way would be near the lighthouse from my vantage point. The compass said it should be. But I knew I only had one night so I hoped I wasn’t wrong.

*The beginning of blue hour on the beach.*

I waited impatiently. It takes forever for the night to get truly dark. And then….a few stars decide to turn on their lights.

I still couldn’t tell exactly where the Milky Way was going to shine…but the stars made me smile anyway. And then….finally, finally, there it was. It was pretty darn amazing. I don’t know why the beach wasn’t full of people just staring.

I stayed out there a long time. A lot of it not shooting, just standing there, in the moment.

Because, really, how many shots can you take of the same lighthouse with the Milky Way? Well, as it turns out…several dozen. You see, the dark sky requires that you have a high ISO and a wide open aperture and that causes grainy shots.

But you can stack them. Did you know that? There’s software that will lay your photos, one on top of the other, and match up your stars and eliminate anything different. And that clears up a lot of the grainy noise. Huh. So I was taking 7 shots of each shot, in preparation for stacking. But I learned, just this week, I should have taken 10 to 15 shots to stack.

Ah well.

*Many of my images had these streaks. I never saw it when I was on the beach, but some people say this light in the sky is the Sky-Link satellites.* *Zoom in and see what you think.*

So, anyway, these are single images, no stacking here, just a little editing to bring out the whites and sometimes to lift the shadows.

I still have so much to learn…so many technical things that I can do to make the images more clear, more beautiful. But the Milky Way season here in Michigan is almost over. There will be one more chance in October, just a few nights, and then I’ll have to be patient until 2023.

*Just to show you, we are never alone, the sky is full of stuff flying around.*

Yea right. I can hardly handle waiting for the sun to set in a single evening. How am I going to get through months of no Milky Way?

It’s gonna be tough.

September 2, 2022
by dawnkinster 22 Comments

So, on to the UP – ey?

Let’s see…last you knew I was hanging out in Mackinaw City waiting for it to stop raining so I could continue on over the bridge to my next adventure.

Yep, I was feeling pretty good. Almost kinda certain that I had gotten some decent Milky Way shots at my last location. Of course I didn’t really know, but was feeling good about it.

And I was so excited to be heading to a new (to me) location to find more dark skies. I had a campsite booked for three nights at Fayette State Park which is located at the bottom of the “Garden Peninsula,” a piece of land jutting down into Lake Michigan from the southern edge of the UP. Should be perfect, right?

Well…wrong. When I arrived at the park about 4 p.m. and drove to my site I found a very small site (not necessarily a deal breaker) that was entirely sloped, about the size of 2 cars, and totally a mud pit.

*Out of focus because I was speeding away.*

I sat there in the drizzle for the amount of time it took me to say”H*LL NO,” and then I drove the long 14 miles back up to civilization where I sat beside the road and searched the internet for a cheap hotel.

Along the way, down and back up, I did note that the Garden Peninsula itself was beautiful. With lots of barns and windmills and such.

So that made it a bit easier when I had to drive back down there again to formally check out of the campground that I never camped in so that I could get a refund for the other two nights.

A sixty dollar refund was worth the drive too. I should have just checked out the evening before when I decided not to stay but I was so freaked out by the campground I just ran.

I made reservations at another state park, Indian Lake, which pretty close to the town of Manistique. It was a much nicer place, with larger camp sites and grass. It wasn’t full my first night so I had a distant view of the lake, though the second night someone camped behind me. Still, I had plenty of room.

And it was only three miles away from the lighthouse where I spent a lot of hours waiting for a sunset and hoping for a chance at a decent Milky Way image.

Did I get that image? Well, as usually this post is getting too long, and I still have lots of images to edit. So I guess you’ll have to wait and see.

*Not much of a sunset….but there was the anticipation of stars.*

I just had another 2 hour lesson from my Milky Way teacher and I now know more about what I don’t know. I guess I need to get out there for another practice session!

*Meet Harlo, my doggie neighbor at the campground.*

Oh darn.

August 19, 2022
by dawnkinster 33 Comments

So, as I was saying…

Let’s see, before Katie decided you needed a Katie fix I was about to take you over the Mackinaw Bridge and on into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My friend, who was in the passenger seat, got some really cool shots of the bridge as we drove over it. I should ask her to share them here…but meanwhile let’s go see what we saw once we left downstate behind.

You might think that the UP (short for Upper Peninsula) is nothing but trees and lakes and mosquitos. You would, of course, be wrong. Thought not far wrong…there’s plenty of all that too.

For example there’s the lighthouses. Did you know Michigan has more lighthouses than Maine? Yea…I forgot, I told you that factoid a few years ago when we were traveling in Maine.

*This one is in Mackinaw City, at the Southern end of the big bridge.*

We visited one of them on our first full day in the UP. It’s a lighthouse that’s not easy to get to, and they tell you on their website and in their literature not to try to find it using GPS.

Trust me, they know what they’re talking about.

There’s no GPS or any kind of service out there, and you get dropped while you’re still miles away in the middle of the middle of nowhere. You need to follow sandy, sometimes two track roads. But the route is mostly well-marked (except for one very important corner where I had a 50/50 chance of guessing right but went left) so if you pay attention and follow the signs you will eventually get to Crisp Point Lighthouse.

*Your first glimpse of Crisp Point Lighthouse makes you smile.*

It’s definitely worth the multi-mile drive through the woods on roads filled with deep holes and standing water. Actually, the roads are one of the reasons I love it so. There are fewer people (but not NO people!) out there. You definitely won’t want to take your RV on those roads, and there’s nowhere to turn around, but if you have a car with a bit of clearance you’ll be fine.

Anyway, once you’re finally there, and have breathed your sigh of relief, you’ll be able to climb the tower if volunteers are on duty to open it up. We were lucky and got to enjoy the view from the top.

*From inside the tower you can see forever.*

And then, since my friend is into rock picking, we walked the beach looking for perfect stones. Though to be honest they all looked like perfect stones to me.

She’s a rock painter, someone who paints rocks with cute colors and pictures and than hides them for people, often kids, to find. It’s a thing. And I found out how fun it is to hide her painted stones as we left more than a dozen behind during the three days we were out exploring, tucked into crevices across the UP.

So I looked for smooth, white rocks that would be good for painting, and she looked for specific types of stones, like quartz (we both found some of that) and granite (lots of it!) and pudding stones (maybe!) and all sorts of others. I don’t remember most of it, but I was pretty good at finding smooth white stones.

Eventually we had to leave this perfect place and find our way back to the world of paved roads. We intended to spend the evening at Whitefish Point, several miles up the Lake Superior shoreline. Maybe there would be a sunset. Maybe there would be stars.

Maybe…just maybe we’d get to see the last super moon rise up from Lake Superior. And, of course, there’s a lighthouse there too.

*An entirely different kind of lighthouse at Whitefish Point.*

Well, it turns out there wasn’t much sunset, though it was still beautiful.

*The cloudless sky turned orange and the most interesting part were the people watching it set.*

And the moon obliterated most of the stars…so we didn’t stay real late, and we made it back to the hotel in Sault Ste. Marie shortly before midnight.

Just in time to get a good night’s sleep in order to get up and do it all over again in the morning!

Were should we go next?

August 15, 2022
by dawnkinster 27 Comments

Now where was I…

Yep, I’ve been gone again. Just a few days in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula which, of course, created a couple hundred images for me to sort through. It’s so beautiful up there that it would be impossible not to take a few hundred images. A day.

Ahem.

*The light was beautiful. Hard NOT to take a few pictures.*

A friend and I drove north on Wednesday, our goal to make it to our hotel in Sault Ste. Marie by late afternoon. Since it’s only about a five hour drive to the bridge (that’s the Mackinaw Bridge for those of you not quite up to speed on Michigan geography) and then less than an hour to the Soo (short for Sault Ste Marie) we had lots of time to meander on our way.

*We meandered here during our driving break.*

Which is, you have to admit, the best way to travel.

So we stopped at one of my favorite parks, about 3 hours into our trip. Hartwick Pines is a place Katie and I have camped many times.

*The logging museum reflects how things were back in the day.*

Visiting without her by my side was hard, but it was fun to show it to someone who hadn’t been there before. We ate our lunch under tall white pines and then walked the path back to the logging museum.

Along the way we stopped at the chapel. I remember Katie and I doing that walk early one morning only a couple of years ago.

Everywhere I looked I could see her.

After our walk we headed north again until we came to the tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula where we stopped to spend some time admiring the Mackinaw Bridge from the shore.

*The clouds added a nice touch to the beautiful span.*

There’s a lovely little park that allows you to walk right under the bridge. You have to do that, I think it’s some kind of unwritten rule that everyone needs to see the underside of the bridge at least once.

*Good to see everything looks ship shape.*

I’ve seen it more times than I can count, starting when I was a kid and my folks took us exploring. I think of them every time I stand under that bridge.

I remember my dad taking us out on the water in his homemade canoe, telling us that we were paddling all the way from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan which turned out to be a short paddle under the bridge that bisects the two Great Lakes.

*A ship much bigger than our canoe heads from Lake Huron to Lake Michigan.*

I still grin over that, all these decades later.

Then it was time to get going, up and over the bridge (where I don’t have images for you because I was driving) and into the Soo. We figured we’d buzz up to the Sault Locks where huge ships traveling the Great Lakes are raised or lowered depending on which direction they’re going.

*It was so fun to watch these ‘little’ boats in the lock!*

We were just going to find out the visiting hours, we didn’t intend to stay, but we were pleased to see a giant ore boat in the biggest lock. We hurried up to the visitor gallery and saw that the lock closest to us was filled with a tugboat, a tour boat and a sailboat.

*Off to get some work done on a Wednesday afternoon.*

So we stayed and watched both locks lower their boats. We figured that was that, but then we were surprised to see another huge ship maneuver into the lock closest to us just after it was emptied of the original three smaller boats!

*Well, where did YOU come from? We hadn’t seen this ship hiding over near the shore!*

So, because the larger ship was just beginning to move out, we were able to watch both locks working at the same time.

*The white tall ‘building’ in the second lock is the back of the larger ore boat pulling out.*

The one closest to us was now raising the red ship in preparation of it moving west…and the huge lock behind it was filled with a huge ship being lowered so that it could continue on to the east.

*I thought this was kind of like walking a dog…only a really BIG dog…*

It was fascinating! We couldn’t have timed it better. I’ve been to the locks a couple of times and never saw a big ship in the lock closest to the viewing area.

There was a guy on the close ship who was talking to people near us up in the viewing stand. They were asking questions about how the food was, what his hours were, how his family felt about him being gone for weeks at a time. He answered, with a wonderful accent, maybe Australian, with good humor and honest facts. I couldn’t hear much because it was so windy that day, but the bits I heard were interesting.

So it turns out that one of our main objectives for the trip, visiting the locks, was accomplished before we even had dinner on our first day!

We ate, that evening, at a restaurant called Antlers in the Soo…which is an interesting place filled with…well….antlers. I had a really good burger and decent onion rings and then, stuffed, tired and happy we headed back to the hotel to dream of our next adventure.

Don’t you wonder where we’re going next?

*I remember Katie-girl sitting right between those two trees on a trip to this park years ago.*

October 3, 2021
by dawnkinster 20 Comments

Northern Lights

No, I’ve never seen them in person. Well. I might have seen a tiny bit of some once, but I’m not sure.

I’ve been watching all the great Northern Light images popping up on Facebook. Many are being shot in northern Michigan, often very near where I used to live a lifetime ago. Sometimes I can tell exactly where the photographer was standing because I’ve stood there myself.

*Creating pollution, light and otherwise while waiting for the Northern Lights.*

Now days I live far away from the northern reaches of the Upper Peninsulia which would be my first choice of viewing locations. It’s just not practical to jump in the car when conditions are right and drive ten hours on the off chance the dancing lights appear.

But I’m sure, sooner or later, I’ll be in the right place at the right time. In fact I was, kind of, a couple years ago.

*I never saw this fist cloud that night, only when I reviewed images later.*

These are photos from 2019 when we were in the UP in the fall and northern lights were predicted. Not only predicted among local northern light buffs, but also on national news networks. Everyone knew there should be lights that night.

Which is why we found ourselves on a beach looking out at Lake Superior along with a few thousand of our closest friends, all of whom were enjoying bonfires producing smoke obscuring the sky.

*Bad composition, but the Milky Way is there.*

Yep. That’s the closest I ever got to seeing the Northern Lights.

*They’re out there somewhere.* *I never did figure out what that red spot was in the water.*

It was a crazy night, and though I was facinated by the others on the beach, mostly Michigan Tech students, we couldn’t see much of anything out over the water. I didn’t even look at these images when we finally made it home from our adventures. We’d seen so many other wonderful things that trip I never thought about these shots at all.

But I have to say…maybe, just maybe I did see some Northern Lights that night. In spite of myself.

*There were people and bonfires as far down the beach as we could see. In both directions.*

Note: These aren’t great images, but to see them at all you’ll probably need to be in a dark room and looking at something larger than your phone.

September 25, 2021
by dawnkinster 28 Comments

Both ends of the road

While camping midway on M-77 in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula last week I decided to explore both ends of that road.

*The colors are changing on M-77 north of M-28 in the UP!*

I’d been up at the northern end, which terminates at Grand Marais along the coast of Lake Superior, in June, but it’s such a pretty spot I thought I’d go see what the lake was up to again.

*I always love the color of the water against the purple grey clouds during a fall storm on this lake.*

As seems to be usual when I visit, it was a stormy day on Lake Superior. Heavy dark clouds made the sky facinating, but made me dash to the car several times as bands of cold rain swept in.

That didn’t deter the rock pickers and there were even a few beach walkers out there even during the worst of it.

*This guy was riding the waves and wind, while a flock of sandhill cranes in the distance fly against the wind.*

But amazingly, the sun won the weather battle and the sky began to brighten. More people instantly appeared to revel in the beauty that is a beach walk in Grand Marais.

*Nothing like a brisk walk along the beach once the rain lets up.*

I always enjoy my time on the shores of Lake Superior, and this time I didn’t pick up one single rock! Though that might have been due to the weather and not my willpower.

The next morning I headed south on M-77 down to where it ends at M-2, then a bit west to Manistique. My goal was to visit a spring my husband and a friend had both told me I had to see. But first there was this pretty lighthouse off the shore of Lake Michigan.

Who can resist, right? It was still windy and cold, but this family out there on the rocks was having lots of fun. Four little kids, they reminded me of my family when we were all that young.

But I was really there to see Kitch-iti-kipi.

*This deep, photogenic spring resides within a state park.*

What is that, you ask? And how do you pronounce it? Well, maybe I better let you read about it first.

It’s a deep, beautiful spring that maintains a 45 F temperature all year around, even in the cold upper Michigan winters. There’s a barge like flotation that runs on a cable out over the top of the spring.

*The colors really are this intense. Especially when the sun shines.*

The barge is moved by turning a wheel near the back. Anyone on the barge can turn the wheel and be captain for awhile.

The center of the barge was open so you could see straight down into the water.

The water was so beautiful, it was mesmerizing. Everywhere I looked people were smiling and happy and chatting and exclaiming over how beautiful it all was.

So, that’s what there is to see at the north and south ends of M-77 in the UP. Since you can’t all get there this fall, I figured you wouldn’t mind if I shared.

Hope you’re smiling now too!

Note: You really should look at these images on something bigger than a phone. You’ll smile wider I promise.

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Tag Archives: travel