I’ve been down at the lake for a couple of days now, but for all you barn lovers I’ll do a short post from my second day of driving south.
I saw a promising area, with rolling hills and what seemed like a lot of barns somewhere in Kentucky off of I 65. I pulled off at the exit and turned onto what looked like a service drive to head back and look for the barns.
Even as turned I began to feel faint bits of recognition. It felt like I’d been down this road before.
Then I started thinking, ‘if the road curves sharply to the left and then goes up a hill I’ve definitely been here before.
And it did.
Even funnier is that I think this is the third time I’ve been down this road, each time on the way to Alabama, and each time enticed by beautiful barns visible from the freeway.
This year, not having a dog with me, I went further down the road and found some ‘new’ barns — structures I hadn’t seen before.
And as the sky darkened with an oncoming storm, I saw in the distance a white church spire that I had to go find. So I did.
I wandered around the cemetery a bit, and shot some barns off in the distance. Then I high tailed it back to the freeway for the rest of my trip home.
I’m going to try very very hard next time I’m driving down to Alabama not to be seduced by this road and it’s barns again. I think three times is plenty.
We had some really hot weather up here in Michigan and it seemed to last forever. Of course it didn’t last forever, but for my two nights of camping at a local state park the heat hung heavily in the air even late into the night.
Even though it was hot I enjoyed a fire each evening.
I hadn’t camped at this park for a few years, not since Katie and I camped there and struggled with noisy kids partying all night just a few sites away.
This site is surrouned by woods.
This time it was much more quiet. I was in my favorite site at this campground, full shade, with lots of privacy. I went there specifically to watch the birds that hang out in the trees surrounding the site, many of which I don’t see at home around my feeders.
My app Merlin says this is a wood thrush. I don’t think we have wood thrushes in Michigan.
And I went to give Penny an opportunity to see a campground for the very first time. Her dad brought her over in the evenings and we sat around and talked.
“I’m a little anxious, mom. And it’s hot out here!”
She sat around and observed. Everything.
“What’s that over there, mom?”
I didn’t ask her to get into the tent for a number of reasons, one it was too hot inside the tent, and two she isn’t really happy in the tent yet.
“Mom, do you have any treats over there?”
But she did get to watch people and dogs and kids walk by and begin to realize she didn’t have to bark at everyone.
“You’re still here, right dad?”
It wasn’t easy for her. Watching dogs walk by, listening to noisy trucks as they hauled trailers past our site was hard.
“Dad? Those kids on bikes need to be herded!”
But little kids on bikes? Now that deserves a big bark, mom!
“So, this is your favorite site mom?”
We still have a lot of work to do, it was all new to her. But I can see potential.
“OK mom, that was interesting, I’m going back to my air conditioning now!”
There are, of course, a lot of memories at my favorite site, memories of camping with my Katie-girl. And I think she was there with me last week.
My girl used to use this leash to wander the site when we camped together so long ago.
I miss her so much, even while little Miss Penny is bouncing around distracting me. Penny says that’s OK and I appreciate her giving me some grace.
Hey Katie-girl, I know you were there.
On my last day at site 16, just before I started packing up and while I was feeling sad and missing Katie, a female cardinal arrived. She hopped around, up on the picnic table, underneath it, across the parking pad, always keeping an eye on me.
“Hey Lady! Don’t feel sad, she’s right there in your heart!”
I kind of think Katie sent her. She made me smile, just like Penny does, who, I’m sure, was also sent by Katie.
I don’t know what this bird is, but it’s pretty!
There’s lots of summer left. I hope I get to take Penny to another campground before the end of the season.
“Just remember lady, you’re never alone!”
And I figure by next summer she just might be ready for a real adventure, even if it’s camping in our own backyard.
So what does a person do while camping at Harrisville State Park once the main mission has been accomplished?
It was a dark and stormy day.
Well. If we’d had another clear night I’d have been out there on the beach getting a second good look at the Milky Way. But we weren’t that fortunate.
We went to the marina on Tuesday to look at the boats. There weren’t many there.
Monday, as we were setting up camp under blue skies, a park employee told us that Tuesday would be rainy but Wednesday was going to be nice. We figured we’d get through Tuesday and find something fun to do on Wednesday.
Tuesday looked like this most of the day.
We figured wrong.
During the day Tuesday we kept expecting it to rain, but it was just breezy and cold. The rain held off, but we expected it at any time. It was really too cold to enjoy walking on the beach.
Layers helped. Sort of.
We went to the local library to stay warm as we tried to find something to do. I googled “What is there to do in Harrisville Michigan?” Google came back with 5 things.
The clouds were cool, though.
1. Sturgeon point lighthouse. Been there, it wasn’t open but we got an amazing image.
2. Harrisville State Park. That’s where we were staying.
3. Cedarbrook Trout Farm. Well, I guess that was a possibility.
4. Bailey School. Saw it through the window, it wasn’t open.
5. Sturgeon Point State Park. Well, that’s where the lighthouse is…so…..
We spent a couple hours at the library, reading magazines and hanging out. When we headed back to camp to make dinner it began to rain.
You can always count on a library to fill a couple of hours.
So we each grabbed some snacks and our reading material and ducked into our tents.
Peanut butter on crackers…perfect snack food.
Fourteen hours later it finally stopped raining. Though I like listening to waves while I sleep I really didn’t need to listen to them for that many hours in a row.
The view from my bed.
And the kicker was that Wednesday wasn’t really any better than Tuesday had been. Windy and cold. We decided to go to the local diner for breakfast.
A warm breakfast always helps to make the day brighter.
There we asked the waitress what there was to do in Harrisville, and she mentioned a couple of stores. One was an art gallery that we had planned on visiting, another was a resale shop with supposedly cool stuff just waiting to be picked over.
Not open for the season yet.
We had hope.
We skipped, reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz, down the city sidewalks. We were still cold.
But it turns out neither place was open because we were up there before Memorial Day, the official start to summer. Sigh.
We walked around the nearly empty town and then drove back to the library where I skimmed a book and she read another magazine.
A library can warm you up.
And then we decided to pack it in and go home.
Time to go, even though it wasn’t technically time to go.
We’d only made one meal at camp. We’d spent way more hours in our tents than we’d planned. It was cold and wet.
We’d accomplished my goal so we could call the trip a success, and sleeping in a real bed in a warm house looked pretty good. It only took us an hour to throw everything in the car and head home.
Sometimes you have to admit that Mother Nature won.
Of course halfway home we stopped at a roadside park and the sun came out. But that was OK, we felt good about our decision to bail on our last night at camp.
The sun came out on our way home.Made us smile.
After all, there’s always another adventure waiting in the wings. I could tell you what and where, but that would spoil the story.
Let’s see. When I left you last my sister and I had driven a few hours north, scoped out a potential night sky photography site at a lighthouse, and set up our campsite at Harrisville State Park.
The view from our campsite.
The purpose of this three night camping adventure was to capture the Milky Way in darker skies than those around my house. I’d made the three night reservation six months ago in order to get a prime Lake Huron shoreline site.
I was sure that at least one night would have clear skies.
A view of the lighthouse from about where we planed to stand later that night.
Based on weather forecasts it looked like Monday night/Tuesday morning was my only chance. So we set our phone alarms to get us up at 2:00 a.m. and in the early morning darkness we drove the few miles to the lighthouse.
We quickly found the “X” we had drawn in the sand earlier in the day and began to set up shop. But while I was lengthening the tripod legs I noticed a light way out on the horizon, shining just above the bench I intended to use as a foreground. The light bothered me because it was so bright.
See that light in the middle of the horizon? It was a lot brighter than it looks here. The orange is light pollution.
I took a couple shots but didn’t like what I was seeing.
Too much light from towns to the south.
I decided to shorten the tripod legs in an attempt to hide the light behind the dune. I sent my sister over to the bench so I could try to focus on it, intending for it to be in the foreground which would be stitched together with another image with the focus being the stars.
She’s walking back using the red light. You can still see some of that bright light on the horizon to the right of her.
That didn’t work, I couldn’t focus on her at all, so I gave up that theory. Plus we were too far away from the bench and if I moved closer there would be that darn light out there on the horizon.
I decided to just try for a single image, nothing I had to stitch together later, just practicing getting the stars in focus. That worked and I took several of the same image so I’d have some spares to practice stacking when I got back home.
You can see the bench, but it’s really small and there’s too much light pollution.
But all the time I was focused on the Milky Way I’d been distracted by the lighthouse to my right. The grounds had a single large light on the other side of the building which was lighting up the side of the tower. I thought it was beautiful and wanted to get a shot of that even if it wasn’t a Milky Way image.
I started to move the camera around while not realizing the shutter was still open.
So once I was done with the multitude of stackable images of the Milky Way, and feeling disappointed in the images I had so far, I turned the camera toward the lighthouse. And the first test image I took I realized included a small part of the Milky Way!
How exciting, it was possible to get the Milky Way and the lighthouse in the same image! Quickly I shifted the camera to the right. And this is what I saw:
Nikon Z6ii, 20 mm, iso 3200, 12 seconds.
The yard light they had perfectly lit the tower without being obscene. I had enough time in between flashes of light to get the image because there was so much other light around. And by moving to the right I had eliminated most of the ugly orange light pollution that blasted out over the lake.
I was thrilled.
The rest of the night I worked on getting the best composition, and then taking multiple shots to stack later. I think I was also trying to get one image with the lighthouse in focus that I could use as a foreground to be blended with my best sky shot.
To be honest I don’t know if I did that. I haven’t looked closely at all the images yet. I fell in love with the single image I’m showing you now and sort of stopped looking after that.
It’s such a great reminder of the entire adventure.
If I don’t end up doing anything more with these I’ll still be happy. I need to read the study guides in my online class to learn how to do blends where part of the image is from one shot with the foreground in focus and the rest of the image is from a sky shot with the stars in focus. It can’t be that hard. Right?
Right???!
So what did we do the rest of our three nights at Harrisville? Well…this has gotten too long already so once again you’ll have to wait and see. But I don’t think anything we did the rest of our time there will top that first night.
Hint: There were no more clear skies, day OR night!
When I’m out shooting the stars I don’t feel the cold. My sister, who was patiently waiting for me was marching up and down the beach trying to thaw her toes. I didn’t notice the cold until we got back to the car, and then I realized I was cold to the core.
We got back to camp about 5 a.m. and headed to our tents to get one hour of sleep before the 6 a.m. sunrise which we wanted to photograph. But we were both so cold all we did was shiver in our tents, even with our electric blankets, as we waited for the sun to come up.
The first hint of sunrise.
And after we got a couple shots with the sun rising we scurried to McDonalds to get a hot cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich. It took a couple hours before we were ready to head back to our tents for a nap.
It was pretty but we were too cold to appreciate it.
Warm was good.
So Monday night/Tuesday morning was the highlight of our camping adventure. Would it be worth it to stick around Harrisville for the rest of our reservation? Hard to say. When I get some more time I’ll show you around town.
Six months ago I reserved a campsite on the shores of Lake Huron during a new moon cycle, intent on doing some Milky Way photography. Many years ago Katie and I camped at this state park and I remembered a lighthouse located just a few miles north that might work for night photography.
This is the Sturgeon Point Lighthouse.
My sister drove all the way up from Alabama just to go with me on this photography adventure. Last Monday we set out early in the day so that we had time to scout out the lighthouse location for potential night shots.
My sister noticed this split in color on the lake.
You see, the weather didn’t look promising beyond Monday night. That’s what happens when you have to book something months out. Weather is always the unknown element. We expected a clear night Monday, but rain and cold Tuesday and Wednesday.
We discussed going back home Tuesday if it was miserable.
Monday was a beautiful day.
And we knew we’d only have one night to get the Milky Way. So we needed to be ready.
The lighthouse was just as I remembered it, standing tall on the shores of the Great Lake. We wandered the beach looking for something interesting to put in the foreground.
The bench might look fun under the Milky Way.
Eventually we decided we needed to be quite a bit behind the lighthouse in order to be shooting Southeast where the Milky Way would be. We found a place that might work, tucked low behind a small dune, and made a big X in the sand so we could find the spot in the darkness of 2 a.m., our planned shoot time.
Probably not this angle though.
Then we explored other places on the site, including Baily School which wasn’t open, but we got an interesting shot through the window anyway.
A school room from back in the day.
We wandered down the beach to the south, thinking maybe the rocks out in the water might be interesting. Even if we didn’t end up shooting there at night, they made a nice, minimal, image in the sunshine we were enjoying.
Maybe we could light paint this rock.
Eventually it was time to go check into the campground. If all three days were as nice as Monday we’d have a wonderful time. If only.
Our campsite, right on the shore, was small, but we managed to make it work.
Maybe the weather forecasts were wrong.
We did note that of the handful of people camping along the shore we were the only ones in tents. Perhaps we were a touch too early in the camping season.
The view from our camp site looked promising.
Not to worry, we each had electric blankets and we were confident that we’d be fine. This was not our first spring camping experience.
Our beach. Though it was too cold to swim.
So…you might ask…what happened on Monday night? Did we leave our nice warm, snuggly beds to drive up to the lighthouse at 2 in the morning? Or did the waves lapping on the shore lull us back to sleep after our alarms rang?
Mom told me you were all waiting for me to tell you about my day(s) of adventure. I thought I had delegated that to her, but you know how hard it is to get good help these days.
You have to cross the railroad track to get to my park!
So I guess I best get to the telling.
Mom?Are you going to take pictures of me all day?
Mom and Dad are having some work done in the food room. Given that’s my favorite room in the whole house I tend to keep a very close watch on things going on in there.
Mom says I get under everybody’s feet and somebody’s going to get hurt.
It was a windy morning!That made me kind of nervous.
Plus did I mention I bark very loudly and for a long time if anyone uses a power tool in my vicinity? Uh huh. So Mom decided she and I needed to go on an adventure all day, or until the nice men with the power tools vacated my property.
Mom said in addition to the wind, the light was really beautiful.Huh. I thought it was ME that was beautiful.
We went out early in the morning and our first stop was MY park! Did mom tell you I have a park named after me?
What is it with mom and wanting me to sit on stuff?
Well, it’s not official or anything. Not yet anyway. I know Katie has a park, and I’m really happy that now I do too! It’s a new part of a big park, and you have to walk over a railroad track to get to it.
Mom doesn’t like crossing railroad tracks.
That creeps mom out, but I told her not to fixate on it and just keep moving. Geeze. Sometimes mom is a wimp.
There’s a pretty little kettle lake back here.
It was windy the morning we were there, and cold, but I was having a great time exploring until mom tried to walk with me into the woods. I’ve told her and told her I don’t really like being in the woods. And that day there were leaves blowing all around and trees creaking and stuff.
Did I hear something back there?
Well mom finally got the idea that I wasn’t happy there and we went back out to an open part. I liked that much better. But the wind was getting worse and it was cold and mom said we needed to move on.
We spent some time in the car warming up and then mom took me over to 7 Lakes State Park. It’s about 15 minutes from our house and a park mom has never explored before.
Mom found lots of interesting stuff to photograph at this park!
A sign there said it was called 7 Lakes because a developer dammed up a river and it flooded 7 small lakes into two bigger lakes. Then the developer decided not to build on the property and sold it to the state for a park.
This is a real pretty state park!
It’s real pretty. There’s lots to explore there, but this time we just walked out on the earthen dam. Mom took lots of pictures that weren’t me.
There was a little island out there with some geese swimming in the open water.
Then on the way off the dam mom asked me to stand on some big rock. I thought it was more fun to stand with just my front feet on the rock. Mom thought I was pretty cute that way too.
There are trails and lots of things to explore at this park. We’ll be back for sure!
Like this, mom?
Then, since the tool guys were still in my food room, mom took me to a third park, about 30 minutes away. It’s near a library where she used to work. We’ve been there once before.
I’m not sure about this bridge mom, there’s water under it!
Somehow this park always gives mom uneasy feelings. She doesn’t know why. She says she never sees any other people there, but the day we were there we met a nice young couple out walking. It was getting late so we only did one small loop. I was getting tired of posing, but I stood on the bridge for her, and then on a log. But I wasn’t happy about it.
I don’t really want to sit here, can we go find some food instead?
I was so happy when dad texted mom that the tool guys were gone and we could go home. I’ve never been to three parks in one day before! It was fun but it was exhausting!
Last picture of me today, mom!Promise?
During the day we drove around a lot too, and mom figured out I’m a pretty good rider on long drives. She says she is glad about that because someday we’ll go on a big adventure together!
Bigger than three parks in one day mom? Wow! I can’t even imagine that!
Mom even managed to find a barn on our adventure!
Oh – it turns out the tool guys weren’t done with the project so mom and I had to leave home again on another day this week. I’ll have to wait to tell you about that day, cause I’m still pretty exhausted and need a nap.
I bet you’re exhausted just reading about our adventure day!
It’s a pretty cool barn, I can understand why she stopped.
A couple weeks ago we got some real snow, the first of any significance this season. It came to us blowing from the northeast, unusual for around here, and it was wet, sticky snow.
The pond across the street.
It stuck to all the tree trunks and branches, outlining everything. From a distance most of the woods around here looked like birch trees.
Heading out to see what there was to see.
I wanted to get out to get some pictures. It was so pretty for so long. But the weather was also miserable for a long time, the roads covered in slippery snow, the wind blowing, the temps in single digits.
The roof of our township offices.
I don’t want to even talk about the wind chill temperatures.
The woods across the marsh, trees painted in snow plaster.
Still, I’d look out the back windows and it was sooooo beautiful.
Up and down hills on the way to the park.
So one afternoon, with the sun peeking out from behind the typical Michigan winter clouds, and temperatures above zero, I ventured out.
Faux plaster.
I went to a park in the next township west of here. I didn’t walk very far, but I enjoyed being out there, and I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed taking them.
I should have brought my skies.
Those of you that live in warmer climates….this is what you’re missing!
Red, white and blue on a pretty winter day.
Now…stop laughing, and no fair sending me pictures of blue skies and golden beaches!
I was talking to my mom yesterday evening. Not literally of course, as she’s been gone since July of 2004. Not even out loud because my husband and my dog were watching football nearby and the Lions were winning.
No, I was talking to my mom because I was making an apple pie with apples I’d gotten from an orchard a couple of towns west of here. It was a last minute decision to run over to Spicers Orchards to get old fashioned baking apples, on a beautiful, crisp Sunday afternoon.
My family used to go to Spicers when we were kids, in the 60s and 70s. Back then it was a one building small place with acres of apple, pear and cherry trees. I have lots of good memories of all of us there.
But it’s not small anymore.
When I arrived, late in the day, I noticed right away all the additional parking. Most of which was filled with cars. An entire field that used to be, well, a field, was parked full of cars. Not to mention the regular lot next to the building that houses the bakery and picked fruit and jelly and stuff. And another full lot across the street.
Something told me Spicers is not the same anymore.
I hadn’t worn a coat, assuming I’d park in the lot and buzz into the store, grab some apples and go. Apparently it wasn’t going to happen like that. I tromped up and down the hills and finally made it over to the store.
For the weekend (I assume just the weekend) they had moved the sale of donuts outside and the line, double wide, stretched from the back of the building, where the tables holding the donuts were, to the winery on the other side of the huge parking lot. There seemed to be nothing left of the small local orchard I remembered. It just wasn’t the same.
Inside, where apples and cider and fudge and ice cream and jelly and cookies and bread were being sold, the line went from the cash registers (now 4 instead of 1) to the back of the store. The place was packed with people.
My first instinct was to turn and flee.
But I was there, so I found some courtland baking apples and a half gallon of cider and I got in line, trying not to feel claustrophobic as people pushed by, their arms laden with goodies. I have to say those cashiers were expedient, and I was paying and back on my way walking up and down the hills to the distant car before I could consider buying a cookie.
So I was telling mom all of this while I was peeling and slicing apples, as I was mixing and rolling the pie dough. It’s not the same, I told her, just not the same.
Then, with my head in the pantry, grabbing some sugar, I had a flashback to a pie she used to make. We called it cheesecake but it obviously wasn’t. There was cream cheese and maybe lemon pudding, in a graham cracker crust. For half an instant, probably because I’d been talking to her about Spicers, I thought I’d just ask her what was in that pie.
It’s still a gut punch, even after nineteen years, when I realize all over again that I can’t ask her anything anymore. It’s not the same, mom, just not the same.
But the apple pie? It pretty much looks the same as the apple pies mom used to make for us decades ago. Mine isn’t as pretty as hers were, but I’m betting it tastes the same.
Some things, regardless of commercialism, never change.
I’m up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a couple nights, hoping for a clear sky to practice Milky Way photography. On my drive up I stopped for a break at Otsego State Park.
I had just made it through a driving rainstorm, the kind where everyone slows down and turns on their emergency blinkers because you can’t see anything. It was stressful, so I figured I’d look at a state park I have never camped at and get a little walk in too.
Though it wasn’t raining, the sky didn’t look promising for night sky photography. I didn’t stay long, wanting to get to the UP and my destination camp site.
But once over the bridge, the sky turned even more ominous.
It was sprinkling when I got to my camp site, so I waited in the car for the sun to come out. And it did.
But then, halfway through my tent set up, the sky suddenly and with no warning let loose with a downpour. I managed to get the rainfly up over the exposed tent and then I dashed for the car.
And hoped.
Would the rainfly keep the inside of my tent dry?
Would I ever get a clear night to try to find the Milky Way?
Change Is Hard 