LIFE: Icy Shores

Seeing grass for the first time in about a month made this girl happier than you could ever imagine. This week the temperatures broke zero for the first time in an absolute age, the snow has begun to melt (well excluding the insane snow mountains ploughed up in car parks because they won't be melting for months) nevertheless we certainly haven't got rid of the snowstorms all together, in fact last week they occurred with thunderstorms and now there's talk of another polar vortex for this week.

The suns also playing tricks, that bright sunshine isn't as warm as it would have you believe. It's actually been nice to have the windows open for a change, often they ended too frozen shut to even attempt to get any fresh air inside.

Again we happened to be driving along Jefferson for estate sales and this time I actually remembered to take a camera. Granted not much of the lake from the roadside appears to have changed since last time, but in general the Great Lakes on are whole are verging on 88% ice coverage which this awesome NASA image shows. But I bet the pilot and travelers of this small plane are more than a little thankful for the ice cover when the engine of the plane they were flying in quit mid flight, a frozen Lake Huron became the perfect landing spot.

So much ice - I hope it's warmer with you!

LIFE: #PhotoAnHour

I've been meaning to a photo an hour post for quite a while, but working from home, in my pj's by the TV isn't the most ideal for finding pretty things to see and do that are worthy of being noted. So I tagged along for the first time with Jane's #PhotoAnHour challenge (which you can follow along or join in month under it's hashtag and see who else joined in). Being a Saturday we were busy and out driving around estate sales, so at least I get to share some of the places and things we find, plus some extras.

9AM - Using the first of our buy one get one coupons from Biggby Coffee, the day began with a Mocha Cameral Latte, rather tasty. Joe had a Neapolitan Latte which apparently wasn't all that good, sad times. Estate sales tend to either start at 9 or 10am, so we headed to our first and got warmed up on this icy Saturday morning. 

10AM - Catching a quick photograph of Detroit along I-75 has we drove from one sale to another. At this point my phone was being pissy because i'd been in a couple of basements and it likes to have a hissy fit and need restarting, wah. 

11AM - Driving back along Lake St Clair between sales in Grosse Point and St Clair the lakes even more icy than it was the last time, chilly times indeed. I have a lot more photographs of the lake so there'll probably be another post on it soon, just because.

12PM - Picnic in the car (first week in a long time that it's actually been warm enough to do that) up in Clinton Township of a tuna sarnie with dortios, every sandwich always tastes extra yummy when you stick crisps inside right?!

1PM - Leaving the 7th estate sale of the day up still in Clinton Township, yeap 7. We actually visited 8 this weekend, which although seems a lot, in the summer months it can be double that. Integrity are one of our favourite companies that run such sales, mainly because of their last day $5 bag deals which means I get to stock up on craft stuff, cookbooks and vinyl's. At this sale we bagged three bags of cookbooks. Score.

2PM - Pit stop at Target for windscreen washer fluid for the car, drooling over notebooks that I don't need but find pretty. I was also drooling over an aqua colour Kitchen Aid mixture.

3PM - By now we were home, I'd tried to have a nap but that wasn't working out so a well deserved cup of Earl Grey and a couple of limited edition marshmallow Oreo's - okay but not as tasty as the cookie dough ones.

4PM - Hour spent sorting out our purchases for the day, including this pretty square vintage hand embroidered tablecloth with teacups and teapots in each corner. Can't wait to have a proper dinning space to have it on the table (currently it's home to the toaster, microwave, paper, oil lamp, random rubbish that I haven't got around to putting away/finding a home.

5PM - Sitting down to have a read through another find of the day, a copy of the Senior Prom magazine from 1950, it has some great articles on "the meaning of sex" and blind dates, there's probably a post coming about it in due course once I can get it flattened out enough.

6PM - Teatime of the leftovers from Friday night's shrimp Gang Pa curry from our favorite Thai Curry place. Twas yummy, but not one of my favorites from them (I'm actually working through their menu every other week).

7PM - Playing with the Grimlock Transformers toy Joe brought me earlier in the day, his mouth and eyes light up, yeah you can get corrupted into wanting Transformers yourself when you live with a collector.

So that was pretty much my Saturday, the rest of the night was spent catching up on blogs, writing some out, messing with photographs while watching TV. I thoroughly enjoyed joining in and I'll certainly be making a point to remember future #PhotoAnHour days in the future, so watch this space.

How did you spend your Saturday?

LIFE: Blue Skies and New Places

The prolonged snowy, horridly winter weather is making me long for spring, blue skies, being able to go outside without having to wear two layers of gloves, you know, warmer times. A quick pick-me-up are the photographs from our October holiday up north (yeah those that i'm still blogging about), yet blue skies seem to far away.

Traverse City was a place we drove pretty much over two hours to visit from Rose City - we'd heard about all the antique stores there and there's a rather good sushi place - which is always an awesome excuse to visit (although in the end we didn't end up eating there because it seemed rather posh and we were hot and sweaty after climbing the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes). I could say that Traverse City remains of Royal Oak or Ann Arbor (which to many won't mean a thing) but has a cool sense of lots of unique stores, restaurants, it's on a lake front. Granted it sees a lot of tourists in the summer months, but it doesn't seem to scream tourist destination like say Mackinaw City.

My camera didn't really come out in our visit to the city - bar eating at the English themed Cornish pastry place, it was more of a time to just relax and soak it up. The city came up in discussion the other day - one that's been added to our "where we might buy our second house" - yeah we're thinking about where we might live come 7/8 years down the line. I like Metro Detroit don't get me wrong, but I don't think it'll be our forever place. While we'd be giving up the zoo and metro parks we'd get gaining National Parks, sand dunes, a lake shores, including Lake Michigan, forests, somewhere a little quieter, more of a life not dominated by freeways and most likely less pot holes.

Where would you love to settle?

TRAVEL: Mr Teds Lighthouse Adventures

Mr Ted has a lot of travel miles under his little belt. He's jet setted his way between East Yorkshire and Detroit three times (although granted once was stuffed within a tight padded envelope which he didn't particularly agree to) he's visited Edinburgh, Pittsburgh, passed through London and stayed in Chicago. Luckily he doesn't ask too much of his human companions but he does like to sight see - in this instance lighthouses. As Mr Ted had read yesterdays post about our beer road trip, he thought it was high time I got around to publishing his lighthouse road trip.

Original source

Our original plan was to drive between Mackinaw City down to Bay City following the tourist scenic drive along the lakeside taking in many of the lighthouses along the way. That was the plan at least - didn't really happen like that we only managed from McGulpin's Point to Forty Mile Point both circled in the map above. But that's for later - i'll let Mr Ted take over from here.

Hello everyone. The first stop was passing the Old Mackinac Point again, this lighthouse one which marks the junction of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan and sits a little away from Mackinac Bridge which actually rendered it obsolete in 1957. Beginning it's operation in 1890, Old Mackinac Point helped guide ships through the dangers of the Mackinac Straits. 

Driving back on ourselves and heading about three miles eastward, me and my human companions took a peek early morning style at McGulpin Point - another lighthouse built to aid the navigation of ships through the Straits and in fact is one of the oldest surviving lighthouses in these parts. Costings $20,000 to build in 1869 and operated until 1906 when the Lighthouse Board judged the aforementioned Old Mackinac Point lighthouse to be doing a better job. The lighthouse was then turned into a private residence and is now open to the public since 2009. Nevertheless this lighthouse design - of a true light tower attached to living quarters is one that went on to feature in many other lighthouses around Michigan and the Great Lakes (Eagle Harbor, White River Light, Sand Island Light) - maybe me and my human companions will see them one day.

Leaving Mackinaw behind we headed along US 23 to Cheboygan - home to quite a number of lighthouses .

Oddly the first we came across was located in a parking lot, somewhat away from the lake if I care to mention it myself. Anyhow, the Cheboygan Front Range lighthouse was constructed in 1890 to guide sailors up the Cheboygan River.

A little further down the road and in Gordon Turner Park you'll find the relocated Cheboygan Crib light - sadly Rachael pointed her camera at the wrong end of the pier there's an internet image for you to admire. Originally the light which was built in 1882 was built offshore and daily the local lighthouse keeper would have to have rowed in all weathers to maintain the light as there were no accommodations in the building. Like with the closing of many of the former lighthouses of the Great Lakes, this light was decommissioned, yet with the support and help of the local community the light was relocated onto firmer ground. 

The good thing about those modern camera contraptions you humans love is being able to capture what I believe is the Fourteen Foot Shoal lighthouse far into the distance. Being one of the first automated lighthouses it marks the shallow depth of Lake Huron at this point (14ft) and appears to remain an active navigation guide.

All this lighthouse talk makes a little Yorkshire bear hungry, so we parked up and ate Cornish pasties - nothing like the English version but a bear must eat all the same. 

Carrying on a little further south we happened upon what has since become mine and Rachael's favorite lighthouse - Forty Mile Point (in fact it's worthy of a post alone). It's a beautiful, fully restored light one built in 1896 there's also a foghorn building and outhouses not to mention a shipwreck which is mighty fun for a bear. It remains in operation to this day. 

We all had hoped to continue the journey along US 23 past Alpena and into Saginaw Bay before heading south back to Detroitland ... just the car had other ideas has it came to a grinding halt and broke down outside of Rogers City much to the dismay of my human friends and I was actually starting to miss my two kitty friends back home. I did overhear them mention a road trip around the entire Lower Michigan Peninsula to see all the rest - there's too many to for a bear to count on his lighthouse map. But I shall hold the humans to that plan all the same.  

LIFE: Icy Lakes and Blizzards

There is something a little unworldly when you look upon what's normally a lively lake at any other time of year. Yet come winter especially this one, for all the eye can see is pure ice. Apparently ice coverage upon the lakes is at it's largest amount for the last 25 years and covers 60% of all the lakes which make up the system.

Jefferson Avenue runs at least partially for a while in the area what's collectively known locally as the Grosse Points alongside the shore of Lake St Clair. While it's tiny in comparison to many other lakes in these parts, it makes up part of the Great Lake System which eventually works it's way eastwards. We happened to be over at that side of Metro Detroit for this weekends estate sales, and while forgetting both of our cameras again, I did manage to grab a couple of bleak shots with the old phone.



Everything you see to the horizon is ice. An ice lake. 

Don't be fooled by the blue skies, temperatures have done little to get above -5C, in fact -5 feels like a heatwave when the majority of the days are below -10. Crisp, biting winds powerful enough to drive huge snow drifts across the road and rock your car take over when the snow stops. Five minutes after the lake side photographs were taken we were met with a wall of snow blizzard driving and the fun starts again!

With 31.5" of snow falling in Metro Detroit this month - yes really, it's not surprising this month has seen more than any other in Detroit's weather records (although they didn't begin until 1888).

If you're like me and get interested in this kind of thing there's some great photographs of the ice on the lakes including this drone shot video of the ice upon Lake Michigan to these stunning frozen land camera shots of Lake Erie (the next lake down from Lake St Clair) by Kaylah on her blog The Dainty Squid.

Hope it's warmer where you are!

LIFE: Starry Night at a International Dark Sky Park

Source

Have you ever really looked at the nights sky? Like really looked, miles from nowhere, away from all the light pollution? If you do you'll certainly start looking at and considering the sky and the universe in a new light. Now don't get me wrong I know nothing about the sky, stars or the planets aside from the basics we all learn in school but even I have come to truly appreciate the wonders of the sky.

If you have your nose to the ground when it comes to science or even rethinking public space and how it comes to be lit you might have heard discussions about light pollution and it's effects not only on the world around us but upon nocturnal creatures. Living in Metro Detroit there is a constant orange haze to the nights sky and it's rare that you ever spot more then a couple of stars or even a planet on any given night and this is increasingly true in many of the places - cities to towns that we live in. This is why Dark Sky Parks are having a growing and important presence.

As I previously mentioned last week we drove up to Mackinaw City to visit the Headlands - Michigan's Intentional Dark Sky Park one of only 11 in the world (you'll find the others in Utah, Pennsylvania, Washington, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, California, Scotland and Hungry) - places which are protected, mitigate light pollution, build awareness of the value of true dark skies both culturally and within science while offering the most incredible skies you'll ever experience.

While open all day, the Headlands comes to life at night, as you approach you start to realise just how incredibly dark real darkness is - there's no street lights to guide you or your car down to the viewing area and with your own torch you slowly make your way through the bush to the waters edge. You gaze up and you just see star after star after star, the sky - the universe above you just seems endless, you realise just how small we all are in the greater scheme of things. This place, this tiny insight into the universe above us, truly made me appreciate the need to understand it.

I could not recommend enough visiting any of the International Dark Sky Parks, or if you don't live close, just getting out into the countryside, you don't need fancy equipment, just darkness and the time to stare up and look. I wouldn't even suggest taking a camera - while a powerful DSRL might be able to capture it, this isn't a time for looking at something through a screen/lens. It's time to experience in the right now.

It'll be an experience that will really stay with you.

Have you ever been to a Dark Sky Park? Have any star gazing tips?

MICHIGAN: The Tourist Trap of Mackinaw City

Mackinaw City is the most northern point of the Lower Michigan Peninsular. It's also the most tourist trap-themed place I've yet to come to visit while in the US. If you took your Whitby or your Scarborough on a smaller scale and threw it into America and looked to see where it landed - you'd find Mackinaw (however here it's by a huge lake rather than a seaside ... but there's still sand all the same). Replace candy floss stands with fudge and popcorn factories and you're well on the way to imagining what it's like. 

The city is most often used as a base for either heading over Mackinaw Bridge into the Upper Peninsular or as a parking lot for the short ferry ride over to Mackinaw Island. It's probably something of a tourist crime to not visit the island - something which is considered one of the places to visit in Michigan, but our main reason was to see the Headlands Dark Sky Viewing Area once the sun had set. Until then we visited the Popcorn Factory - home to such flavors as Maple to Nacho's, explored around the Old Mackinaw Point Lighthouse and peered through the wire around Colonial Michilimackinac - a representation of the former French and then British fort - yes us British have a long history in these parts until we were somewhat chased off onto the Island .. enough said.

Mackinaw is a huge cultural difference to the quaint fisherman towns along the shores of Lake Huron and Michigan that I had come to love, it sadly seems a little too much built for tourists and little else, just row up row of hotels and motels. While it was worth a visit and there's certainly things I want to do given more time (visiting Mackinaw Island, Ice Breaker Tour to taking a boat trip out to visit the lighthouses) but i'm certainly coming to prefer my smaller, out of the way USA.

How do you prefer your seaside and lake side towns - has tourist traps or small and quaint?

MICHIGAN: Harbor Springs

Now in the post Christmas and New Year hangover, we can all somewhat return to our normally blogging life. For me it's basically catching up with all the things that I didn't get around to posting prior to the festive season. So back when we went on our vacation to Rose City back in October we decieded to travel further north to spend a night in Mackinaw City. To get there we thought we'd go the long way along the top western edge of the Lower Peninsular passing on the way through Harbor Springs.

Harbor Springs is known for it's antique stores, unfortunately the season for such stores been open ends at the beginning of October so there wasn't any vintage picking to be had. It's a charming place founded originally by the Jesuits around a sheltered bay, with streets of brightly painted homes and a wonderful row of high street shops, sadly more catering for the richer clientele than our pockets would allow and probably by the looks of it filled with second homes. At one time it was home to the largest concentration of Native Americans in Michigan.

A walk towards the high street you'll spy hexagonal shaped house (as seen in the second to last image) designed by Ephraim Shay in 1888 (also the inventor of the Shay Locomotive). The house is now listed upon the National Register of Historic Places and is rather famous with both interior and exterior walls stamped in steel plates. The main street itself is worthy of a walk along - just to spy and take sight of a traditional all American row of shops, in smaller towns such as these they remind me of the high streets of the homeland, just a lot straighter.

The blue skies in these photographs seem a world away from the 8 or so inches of snow dusting the lawn in front of our apartment,  amazing the difference in what mother nature can throw at you.

MICHIGAN - Kitcheossening

The way Columbus is celebrated you might come to think there wasn't an American population before he "found" the country. Yet American was home to many hundreds of Native American tribes and today at leas in my Michigan experiences many historic makers come to remind us of the important places to Indian tribes and their people. One such place is Kitcheossening - now known as Big Point Rock. 

On our drive north from Mio through to Mackinaw we took the long scenic route through Charlevoix along the western coast of the state and found Big Point Rock as a place for a sarnie and a viewpoint. Markers state that Big Rock Point was named for a large boulder Native Americans used as a landmark and a gathering place by the Odawa (Ottawa) Indians as early as the mid 19th century. Each spring the Odawa returned to Waganaksing (are between Harbor Springs and Cross Village) with their wiigwaas jiimaan (birch back canoes) loaded with goods - sugar, furs to skins, meat, oils and honey after spending the winter hunting. You can see why - the huge bay although stony, is an excellent base for getting out onto Lake Michigan even today. 

MICHIGAN: Sleeping Bear Dunes

Stop signs and blowing hurriedly stuck down notices declaring the areas along the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore closed (again due to the old government shut down - you can see a theme developing across these posts can't you?!) were getting little attention. Like in many of the National run parks and forests people literally were driving their cars around the aforementioned signs.

As we drove along the scenic drive from Traverse City via Leelanau State Park and back south along US-22 you can see why the Sleeping Bear Dunes and the drive we tried to get onto was voted the most Beautiful place in America by Good Morning America in 2011. Even on an autumnal day you could see the dots of tourists as they climbing their way up the Sleeping Bear Dunes and while the scenic car dive was closed as a result of the shut down, we like many took to our feet and walked to one of the many look outs over the dunes instead. 

To say the views from the North Bar Lake Overlook were stunning is somewhat of an understatement and the camera fails to capture just how investigating beautiful the vista over the sand dunes towards Lake Michigan actually was. Perhaps more so after the arduous up hill climb without really knowing where we were heading, aching feet, growing blisters and the heat didn't help, but this is what we saw;

Sleeping Bear Dunes cover a 35 mile stretch in north west Michigan are named as such after the Chippewa legend of a huge fire upon the western end of Lake Michigan which drove a mother and her two cubs to fee and swim across the lake towards the shore. Mother bear reached the safety of the shore, yet tired after the swim she laid down to wait for her cubs, sadly they drowned. The Great Spirit watching the cubs determination, created the North and South Manitou Islands to commemorate the two cubs while the winds covered the sleeping mother bear. 

Sometimes the beauty of nature really just dwarfs you.

Where would you vote as being the most beautiful place in America? I'd love to hear!

MICHIGAN: To the Lighthouse

If you ever get the time or the inclination to do so there's a gorgeous lakeside scenic road tour around Lake Michigan which we happened to drive along on a day trip out from Traverse City. At times you'll forget they are even lakes they are so vast, their stretch seems endless like the seas which ultimately lead the lakes to be also known as the Sweetwater Seas. Making the drive north we headed along the lake side to Leelanau State Park to visit the Grand Traverse Lighthouse one set in a popular beauty spot, tourist destination and growing wine region. 

Many take the time to visit not only do the Lake Michigan circular tour, but to stop at all the lighthouses along the way - in fact Michigan has more lighthouses then any US state with 115 still standing although many are now decommissioned. Lighthouses and foghorns during the late 1800's when many of them were built marked and signaled the only way to guide ships through the Great Lakes that surround Michigan, guiding ships between Chicago and out towards New York, you might be surprised to hear that the Great Lakes are some of the most treacherous waters out there.

The Grand Traverse Light built in 1858 guards the entrance between Lake Michigan and Grand Traverse Bay right on the very tip of the Leelanau Peninsular and now sits within the Leelanau State Park. While decommissioned in 1972, for a small fee you can now climb your way to the light and gaze out to a further two lighthouses in the far distance. Climbing down onto the beach we were met with a mass of stone snacks, some featuring some incredibly well balanced arrangements of stones marking people's visits over the years. a modern man made monument striking in it's volume although I can imagine many fall victim to rough winter storms.