The Great North Woods

At one point I thought it would be a good idea to post every day here with another picture taken from the same spot on our front porch, like Monet at Rouen Cathedral, chronicling the various interactions seen out there between wind, sun, cloud, water, light, trees, and flagpole. But I'm far too disorganized to do anything so SYSTEMATIC in a blog. I'm continually amazed I was organized enough to make it this far.

I've made it to the post-vacation vacation, settling down to an incredibly UNeventful few weeks after a wildly eventful few weeks, the dazzling urbanite heading off for more rustic pleasures, setting aside society for solitude, worrying not about 'am I gonna make this next train I'm supposed to catch' but instead about 'am I gonna finish reading this book/writing this scene/watching this dvd before it gets dark, since I seem to rise and set with the sun.'

So far, it's been really nice! Just to give you a little more sense of the location, here are photos from today's bike ride, along the beach road out to the west. Michigan once upon a time was a great big swamp, thus the low, flat, level country, the multitude of lakes, vistas like the one below, and the zillions of stinging, itching, annoying flies:



When I was a kid up here I had no idea how remote it really was. Instead, I assumed I'd grow up to be a scientist of some kind, since as a young 'un my chief interest was the biology and geology of the area. I realize now that was more about the dearth of anything interesting locally other than the environs and the flora and fauna. And, I should add, that stuff really is really interesting, and beautiful! Nature shot from this morning, a butterfly saying hi to a lily out in the backyard:

And here's a shot of what my father always referred to as "the mighty Carp". Wagner's Rhine it certainly is not; this little trickle of brown water flows from nearby Carp Lake into Lake Michigan a few miles from our bay. I was surprised to find that a little county park had sprung up near its mouth, where two decades ago there was basically only a rusted-out fence.

Below, an image of Trailsend Bay; in the distance, amid the green span of trees to the left, you can see a blip of white: that's the flag in front of my cottage (photographed so frequently for the tops of these blogs). Unfortunately in this low-res photo you can't very well see the two towers of the Mackinaw Bridge poking above those trees, amid the clouds in the distance. But I'll head up there tomorrow, or the next day, and get you a shot or two of the bridge and what's what in the village.

As you can see, today was a lovely day, although the white caps in the water give you a little indication of how darn windy it's been! Keeps the temperature down, making sun-bathing a little chilly; on the other hand, it blows the flies away, making sun-bathing possible. SIGH...damned if you do...