It’s been two, maybe three weeks since I was in Alabama. And you know that I took a few photos while I was there.
Arriving after 2 days of driving.
Maybe you’d want to see a few of my favorites?
Every morning I’d take a picture of the lake. Most of the time it was so quiet.
Of course who really defines the term “few?”
That red soil is a dead giveaway you’re in the South.
As it turns out most of the images I took this time revolved around birds. Why do you think that is? And are the birds much different in Alabama than they are in Michigan?
Maybe a king bird, maybe something else. Was sitting at the top of a young oak tree on an island in the lake.
But we weren’t always birders, we also took a couple boat rides on my brother’s lake. One in the middle of the day where we saw the bird above and one to see the sunset.
Sunset from behind the mimosa tree
And on our boat rides we did, of course, see birds. This was a big bird. This is the Osprey that builds a nest every year in the very tall power towers on my brother’s lake.
Osprey parent taking a sunset break from the demanding babies up in the nest.
There were very noisy babies in residence when I visited. They cried all day for mom or dad to feed them.
What are you looking at, lady?
And there was a bluebird couple remodeling the nest for their next brood, hovering around just over our heads as we sat on the back patio.
I keep telling him it’s a total gut job.
They didn’t seem worried about us at all as long as we didn’t move too quickly.
I think it’s fine the way it is. The kids will just poop all over it anyway.
And a brown thrush singing away and then scuttling along the lake shore looking for something good to eat.
I’m pretending to be a speedy roadrunner bird!
And, back at the cabin’s lake, we climbed the mountain and then the fire tower to view the large expanse of Lake Martin.
A small part of Lake Martin.
Actually, you can, even at that height, only view a small portion of this giant lake.
A fisherman was having a quiet moment when suddenly jet skies zoomed by.
And of course I went out in the kayak a couple times, not going too far, just down to the end of this bit of water, or that bit over there.
I spent a long time in the kayak trying to get these two glowing trees.
We have martin gourds at Lake Martin and this year the birds have taken up residence in at least one of them.
Incoming!
Babies there too.
You’re not my mama!
So all in all it was a good trip. I’m glad I went and I’m hoping to get down there again before this summer is over.
An orchard oriole in my brother’s back yard.
We’ll see.
Home away from home.
Oh…you ask…on my trip back to Michigan did I see anything interesting?
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.
A perfect place for lunch.
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.
A peaceful place to remember my girl.
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.
“The food is pretty good!”
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!
Riding high on her way west.
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.
Change Is Hard 