August 17, 2018

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Coleus flowers outside the hotel.

On our way home.  Google took us down a country road rather than back through Petoskey.  I'd rather see fields than strip malls..........

I don't think I've mentioned how dry it was in Petoskey.  We had a very dry July in Ann Arbor, but have had measurable rain several times in August.  I don't think Petoskey had had any measurable rain within several weeks of when we were there.  The ground was dusty..............

We've turned east toward the big road.  There are blurry trees everywhere..........

When we were a couple of hours south of Petoskey we stopped at a rest area.

Maple.

There were lots of bees in this bright yellow stuff.  (Maybe this is heliopsis?)

See one?  (Same pic as above, with circled bee.)

I'm still surprised -- and pleased -- when the phone camera (with its teensy lens) manages to get this much detail from as far away as I was when I took the pic above.  This is a closer crop of the image above, not a different image taken closer to the bee........

I don't remember ever seeing this before.  I wonder what it is..........

Update -- one of my Instagram buddies identified this as  Monarda punctata.

Looking straight down at the same plant as above.

Closer crop of the image just above this one.  All those "hairs"..........

I don't know what this is.  The flowers look thistle-y but the plant doesn't.

Here's a look at the plant.  That sort of dusty green stuff with the small leaves.  No spikes on this.....

One last plant before we head back to A2.  I don't know what this one is, either.

Closer crop.

An even closer crop.  Love my "slow magnifying glass"............

We had an uneventful if damp trip home.  We came through quite heavy rain a couple of times.

All was well at home.  It's good to go places and do things....................


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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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January 27, 2018

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Road trip!  I remember this giant tire from when I was a kid.

According to Wikipedia, "The Uniroyal Giant Tire was created by the Uniroyal Tire Company for the 1964 New York World's Fair, where it functioned as a Ferris wheel. Since 1966 it has served as a static display in Allen Park, Michigan, alongside Interstate 94, between the Southfield Freeway interchange and Outer Drive overpass."

Goin' to Deeetroit!  Starting at Sister Pie.

Closer crop of the above.

They have four kinds of pie, scones, and lots of cookies.  They often have "hand pies"which are small savory pies.  They have either a soup or a salad at lunch time.

They are very adventurous with their taste combinations. 

They are very supportive of their community, buying local honey, local herbs, local veggies (at Eastern Market, often). 

I'd been following them on Instagram for a while, and was eager to visit.

The day we were there they had honey lemon meringue, coffee chess, salted maple, and coconut squash pies.

We had salted maple and coffee chess.  (We were disappointed not to have squash, but we do not do coconut.)

The coffee chess pie was my favorite thing we tried.  I am not in favor of the current fad for big chunks of salt on desserts.......



Plants on the windowsills.

We ate pie, and then we bought a lot of things to taste later.  Three kinds of shortbread.  Three or four kinds of other cookies.  Their vegan brownie.

In addition to more salt on top of things than I'd prefer, there was coconut in a lot of things.  I actively dislike coconut.  It's not that I prefer other things, it's that I have a visceral "NO" reaction to coconut.

I'd really been looking forward to buckwheat choc chip cookies.  (Who knows what that might taste like?)   Unfortunately the coconut overwhelmed everything else but the chocolate.  (And there was coconut in the oatmeal cookie, too.  Booo.)  I think I would have liked the vegan brownie -- if they'd left the coconut out........

Both of the scones we tried were savory.  No coconut.  Yay.  I liked both of them.

Sister Pie is a fun and interesting place to visit, and I think everyone should go there and taste a lot of stuff.

The coffee chess pie (which is not on the menu at the moment, I think) is yummy.  I would definitely choose it again.  I was sorry there were no hand pies when we were there.  I wanted to taste them, too (the filling varies, so they're differing pretty much every time, I think).


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