Sable Lake to Lake Superior hike in the Grand Sable Dunes

The road to Sable Lake is now open so yesterday Lois and I decided that we just had to hike the Grand Sable Dunes.  As many of you know, I absolutely love the dunes!  The temperature was around 30 with a bit of a breeze so it was chilly.  But the sunny skies were fantastic and it sure felt good to be back up in the dunes.  We hiked all the way across the dunes to Lake Superior and back.

Sable Lake from the top of the dune...

I love this time of the year in the dunes when there is extreme contract in colors with snow, sand, dune grass, and trees...

 

But there are sections with almost no snow...

 

  

 Then we arrived at the bluff...

Heading back....

Happy Equinox

An equinox is an astronomical event in which the plane of Earth's equator passes through the center of the Sun, which occurs twice each year around March 20th and September 23rd.  On an equinox, day and night are of approximately equal duration all over the planet.
Today the length of day is12 hours 14 minutes long, so night is just short of 12 hours long. 
Tomorrow the days will start getting longer -- until the third week in June -- so the day tomorrow will be 3 minutes 20 seconds longer!
It was clear last night and with the equinox the moon is at a perfect height to get good photos of the moon.  So I set up my tripod and got a few photographs!

 NWS Image

First I took a photo of sunset colors from my house.

 

Then the moon....

Incredibly Beautiful Shelf Ice Sculptures

It is absolutely amazing to me how much the beach changes on a daily basis this time of year.  Lois and I were down the beach two days ago when the waves were still carving out and breaking up the shore ice.  Yesterday the winds were calm and the sun was out so Lois and I headed down to the beach for another walk.  The shelf ice hanging on to shore and sitting on the sand bar just off shore were incredibly beautiful.  I was in absolute awe.  Nature's beautiful statues make for great photography.  I couldn't decide which pictures to include in this blog posting so I am including them all.

The first picture I took earlier in the day when I stopped by the Sucker River to see what the beach looked like there.  The first two pictures I took of ice trying to form on vegetation along the side of the river.

Shelf ice in front of Woodland Park....

Looking east toward the west pier and outer harbor lighthouse...

Snow melt cities....

First Creek.....

 

School Forest Hike and History Book Update

First of all I'll give you an update on the history book.  Other than when I am out exercising, for the most part I have been doing nothing but working on the history book.  As a result of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I am over 90 percent done with the first draft.  I have really enjoyed the process -- and I have learned a lot!  So far the book is around 200 pages with 120 images and diagrams.  Now that the first draft is almost complete, I have been working on deciding a final tittle and I have also made decisions about the chapter divisions.  I am not good at coming up with cleaver or descriptive titles, so I have been asking other people their opinion.  Thanks to Marcela at Fox River Auto, I am going to go with one of two titles:  either Superiorland or Superior Land.  What do you think?

Yesterday Lois Fite and I enjoyed the sunshine by walking down the School Forest road.  It was a bit icy but beautiful.

Bear leading the way, as usual....

There is no more ice left on the very high flowing Sucker RIver....

Wide bend of the Sucker...

Shore Ice is Breaking Up

As you regular blog followers know we have spent a lot of time on the winter beach, skiing at first and hiking lately.  Following the 50 mph wind gust the other day I didn't expect the shore ice to be that much difference since the mounds seemed very solid.  Wrong I was.  When Lois and I got to First Creek yesterday we were absolutely amazed.  The storm two days ago broke up at least 60 percent of the ice!  It looks like agate hunting will be early this year.  There is still ice at the high water mark and out from shore a couple of hundred feet, but the big 40-50 foot mounds of ice in the second row away from shore are for the most part gone.  Just like that.  Amazing.