Road Trip - Michigan: Wetland

Every morning, a very large bunch of turtles slides up on the shore of the neighbor's sea wall to sun.   They stay there all day unless there's a lot of boat traffic back and forth along the channel.

The only thing I love as much as birds is plants.    And I especially love wetland plants.   It's a texture thing.

Lilies in a garden pond

Lilies in the lake

Path along the lakeshore

Lakeside pool

Lake house side yard

Cattails in high water pool

I could look at these all day long.   Some day, I'm going to have a lake house and take long walks every day and sit and paint what I see and I"ll fill my walls with the paintings and be happy just looking at them.

Road Trip - Michigan: Water birds

I love birds.  

Ducks in a row

I love water.    

Swans on the lake

I had a field day with the camera on vacation.     

Mirror, mirror...

Especially with the swans.

Oh, yeah.

Lucky shot

This is my favorite one. 

Road Trip - Michigan: The water

So, they have a lot of water up there in Michigan.  

Lots of it, I tell you.   Lots and lots.   Dudes love their boats.  And fishing. 

As we were staying lakeside, I felt it incumbent upon me to share all that lake joy with you by taking advantage of the opportunity to photograph all that water and all those boats. 

Incumbent, I tell you!

This is the back yard of the place I stayed.  Right on the channel that leads to the lake.  

It faces east, so the morning light on the water makes the house all bright and cheery.  

Usually in the mornings, the channel is smooth as glass.   Then folks wake up and go fishing and skiing and sight seeing on their boats and the channel gets a lot less glassy. 

Dudes fish all the time.   In all weather.   When the channel ices over, they ice fish.    [I hear tell that it's no fun at all to have folks tramping through your yard all winter to ice fish.   No fun at all.]

I bet you catch more fish and ski better if you're in a red boat.  

I know I would.

No one was skiing off this boat.  He was probably trying to beat someone else to the best fishing. 

Here's another channel leading to the lake.   A lot of folks on the lake have pontoon boats like this one.  

They're not for skiing.  

They're for meandering around on the lake.   Or maybe fishing.   Or napping.   Or partying.  We saw one all decked out in Japanese lanterns for a party.  

This pic has nothing to do with boats, but I thought the textures were so pretty. 

And I wondered what they use all that wood for.  Since we didn't see a big fire pit outside,  or a 'Wood For Sale' sign, I assume they use it inside for heat.   They must live on the lake year round. 

If I lived on the lake I'd want a fire in the fireplace every night, too.  

And even if I didn't have a boat, I'd sit outside and paint the lake and the stuff in the lake and on the lake and all those dudes fishing and skiing.  And it would make me happy.

Road Trip - Michigan

I was born in Michigan.    Yep, in Benton Harbor, which is right on Lake Michigan near St. Joseph.

Even though I've lived in Indiana the vast majority of my life, I still have a soft spot in my heart for Michigan.

I heart Michigan!

It's a 5 or so hour trip from here to where we stayed with my sister on one of the myriad of tiny lakes that dot Michigan.  



Here are the highlights of our drive.   It was Pure Michigan.  

Which every other billboard reminded us, the closer we got to the state line.  

I love the giant old northern barns.    beautiful old dairy barns.

Look at the size of that!

I also love all the little lakes. 

And now a Cliff Clavin moment:  It's a little known fact that wherever you are in Michigan, you are within 6 miles of a lake.     

Just so you know. 

We crossed the St. Joseph River, which meanders down into Indiana and then back up to empty out into Lake Michigan.  

On the southern bend of the river, there's a lovely city called.....South Bend.    I did most of my growing up there.   It's a beautiful place.

Mostly what I love looking at as we go further north is this....

Black dirt. 

Black dirt is magic.   It's full of good stuff.  Combine that with all the sand in the Great Lakes region and you've got fabulous soil.

We don't have black dirt.   We have orange clay.

If I'd had room, I'd have brought a truckload back with me.  Totally.   

But the most interesting thing we saw on our drive was when we stopped to check out the car, which was making a bad noise [turned out to be stuck in 4wd - it fixed itself at 65 mph]. 

While I was checking the tires and under the car, K2 snapped this pic.

What do you suppose he was planning on doing up there?