Detroit, standing strong in covid times

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When the motor stops, the spirit continues. #staysafedetroit pic.twitter.com/y3QFxJG9qQ

— Doner (@doner_agency) March 30, 2020

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November 1

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Happy Birthday, bro!



Enjoying a sunny day, after some rainy ones.

I don't know what this is.  The rest are from a variety of maples.

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August 14, 2018

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Wiffle golf ball in the basil.  This must be at our house.

Road trip!  There was a bridge tournament in Petoskey, Michigan.  We made a quickie trip up north.

There are only two divided highways going north/south, and only this one is divided all the way.  On Friday afternoons and evenings the northbound lanes are stop and go.  And on Sunday evenings the southbound lanes are mostly stop with not hardly any go at all.

The next image is a closer crop of the above.  Once upon a time this was a draw bridge.  Traffic would back up a long, long way when the bridge was up...................  The last time I participated in a "go up on Friday, come back home on Sunday" Up North trip, I said "NEVER AGAIN."  Even though that trip was after this bridge was built! 

Going up on Tuesday and coming back on Friday was much better.

Petoskey is on Little Traverse Bay, which is an arm of Lake Michigan.  Some of the dark hazy blue behind the trees in the next image is the lake. 
We'd looked on Googlemaps before we left home.  We knew our hotel was "across the street" from the lake, and we'd thought we probably could get to the lake on foot.

But no.

The "street" is a busy 50-mph road. 

We did manage to cross the street on foot -- obstacle #1 managed.

We had seen a place on Googlemaps where it looked like you could cross through the forest on foot, and go up a little way on a paved bicycle path to another path and get to the lake.

We found that place in real life.  You can see from this image that the change in elevation from here to the lake is marked........

The next image was taken from the same place as the previous one, only looking down rather than straight ahead.  The busy road is at least 100 feet higher than the lake, and the slope is ... well, not *precipitous*, really, but steeper and more chancy than old-enough-to-know-better humans wanted to tackle.  (On Googlemaps, this seemed to be a wide sandy place.  Wide-ish, ok, but sandy?  No.  Big rocks.  With smaller rocks.)

Obstacle #2 definitely NOT managed.



The place above was a bit east of our hotel.  There is a park on the lake which is west of the hotel by about a quarter mile.  We tried to get there on foot.  We traversed the properties of a few businesses.  There were no sidewalks, but some of the businesses had mowed lawns.

And flowers. 

The mowed lawns were manageable, but after a ways there were no more lawns.  The slanting ground was covered with weeds.

Obstacle #3 also not managed.  We decided you could not get from our hotel to the lake on foot if you valued your safety.



We gave up and went back to the hotel for the car.

That road was busy enough that turning left out of the parking lot in the car was non-trivial.  We had to wait quite a while.  At least it was a nice day.....

We did manage to drive to the park. 

East Park, a few miles east of Petoskey, is a pleasant place.  It is on two levels.  Part of it is high, but then the drive curves around and gets down to within maybe six feet of lake level.  The park's upper level has a shelter, with bathrooms and a drinking fountain.  (And parking.)  There is a big elaborate playground structure.

This panorama was taken from parking lot at the top of the hill in the park.

It is possible to just make out the path along the edge of the lake from up here.

Now we have driven down to the lower part of the park.

There is more parking, and some benches.  There is access to the path that goes along the edge of the lake.

You can touch the lake, but the shore is not exactly friendly.  It's big rocks, and smaller rocks.  We are pretty sure that those rocks haven't been there that long.  We think people put them there to help stop erosion.  (Rather than Mother Nature putting them there.....)

The rocks do not have nice smooth water-rounded edges.  They're not sharp enough that you wonder about cutting your bare feet, but they are not comfy to stand on.

The sight and sound of the Big Water............

This is a closer crop of the prev.  You can see sunlight bent by the uneven surface of the water on the sides of submerged rocks..........

The next few images were taken from a bench which is in shade after 6 pm, very close to where I was standing in the previous few shots.  Little Traverse Bay runs basically west/east. 

We are looking north across the bay.

Same rocks seen in the previous image, exposed for the ground rather than the water.

This is looking east.  The only place in Little Traverse Bay which I am aware has a "friendly" shore with natural beach is in the east end of the bay.  I wonder if the prevailing wind blows the sand into that part of the bay................  (Or, if not, what does put the sand there.)

Petoskey State Park encompasses the beach.  I believe we can see it from here.......  (Same image as the previous, only labeled.)

I probably should have led this "lower park" section of this post with this image. 

You can see the very rocky place where you can actually touch the lake.  Small, slanted, rocky.  Those dark dots in the lake, sort of in the center of the image, are Canada geese.

Here's where I was standing with my feet in the water.

Closer crop of the above.  Me and my phone.  And the geese.

What a great sky.................

Closer crop of the above -- geese, and seagull (at right, on the wing). 

Also crashing wave, lower left.

An appreciation of the sky............

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September 26

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Time to go home.

The Kansas City airport has a very fancy floor.  Many mosaics.  My mom made an excellent set of prints of this Kansas City icon.

KC has had a lot of rain this year.  It was greener than it often is.  I believe this is Smithville Lake, where Calontir holds a big SCA event each spring.

So many greens..........

There aren't very many landmarks between KC and Detroit that I recognize.  I think this is the Mississippi.

We flew a southerly route.  I sat on the south side of the plane, and I never saw Lake Michigan.



It was a nice day in southeast Michigan.

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May 5

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I walked downtown on May 5.  I had an umbrella, but it was windy enough that I didn't stop to take many pics. 

The title of this one is Springtime in Pure Michigan.

It's excellent to have the roads fixed, but it's tiresome *while* they are fixing the roads.  They often don't seem to pay attention to maps, when making decisions about fixing roads, and it's not unusual to have two major east-west roads (or two major north-south roads) all torn up at the same time.

Navigation can be a challenge.

When you're driving.

But when you're walking, this actually makes it easier to get around.  Above, we are looking east on Huron.  Huron is heavily-trafficked enough that crossing on foot requires attention and a willingness to hustle.  When it's not torn up, that is.  At present, only one (1) lane is accommodating vehicular traffic.

Instead of two lanes in each direction to keep track of, a pedestrian has only one lane, going in one direction, which needs her attention.

Much easier to cross.



I think they are widening Huron, between the Jackson/Dexter fork and downtown.  I wonder how many of the street trees will not survive this assault.............


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June 30 -- The Henry Ford, part 2, and the rest of the day

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The Henry Ford has a TON of ephemera, as well as cars and coverlets and chairs.  Every time a Ford factory cleans out old documentation, it comes to the museum......

This receipt was near the oldest vehicle in a line that went from very old to a lot newer.

Closeup, showing bicycle chain, and the toothed wheel that transferred the drive from the chain to the axel.

This was before the production line was in place.  You could get more than one color, in those days.

Closeup of above, showing chain.

I bet they had one of these informative collections of info for every vehicle in this area.  I wish I'd paid more attention to them!  There were also cases with other sorts of things that were new when the cars were new -- remote controls for tvs, for example.  Those were fun to look at, too.

It would be interesting to see the spreadsheet, wouldn't it?  All of this info for all the vehicles?

C. and I spent lots of time just talking, so there aren't as many pics as there could have been. 

I think it is totally excellent when a childhood friend is still a friend, 50 years later!



I've now returned to Ann Arbor, after another lovely day with C.

Back to my prosaic daily life.

Walking the dog.

We've seen lots of fairy doors in Ann Arbor. 

I'm guessing the five-sided black/yellow/red/blue thing is a door.  Painted to match Wonder Woman............  One of the flamingos is hanging out w/WW.

Note that Superman has brought his grill to the party.  The other flamingo is keeping an eye on the grill.

Did you see the dog, in the upper left hand of the first pic on this topic?

My daylilies.

The neighbor's raspberries.

Linden tree flowers.

Orange lilies.

Another day, another gorgeous sky............

Hostas.  The sun was so low in the sky that it was shining on the flowers from under the leaves.  See the shadow, top center?

Pink clover.

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