Another Beach Fire Dinner

Yesterday one of my Ann Arbor friends, Mark Comstock, and three of his friends came up to visit me for a couple of days.  Thanks to Mark, Sjaak, Tim, and Karin for a delightful evening.  We had a beach fire east of town and cooked brats, beans, CA veggie blend, and sliced potatoes.

Check out the wood carrying method below.  Tim and Mark used two longer pieces of driftwood and carried smaller pieces placed perpendicular to the longer logs.

The sun is now setting farther to the south.  Since this section of beach slants a bit to the southeast, we cannot see the sun descend to the lake.
 

Looking east...

Another Sunset

Last night was the last one in Grand Marais for my visiting Uncle Doug and Aunt Lynne.  We went out to eat and then headed to the boardwalk for sunset.

Picnic and Sunset

The past few days my Uncle Doug and Aunt Lynne have been visiting Grand Marais.  My uncle grew up here and enjoys his return visits.  Last night we cooked out at the Sable Lake overlook and then drove over to Hurricane River to watch the sunset.

Sable Lake overlook fence....

Hurricane River....

From the foot bridge looking north...

....and south.  The speed of the current was amazing last night!

Another sunset watcher... trapped!

Bay, Beach, and More

Yesterday I took a few photos of Grand Marais Bay, as well as one of the beaches east of town.

Grand Marais Bay....

Lonesome Point located east of the bay, or what is left of it.  Much of this point has eroded away over the last few decades.  The new breakwall is located in the foreground of the photo.

The next photos show the sand build up next to the breakwall.  Eventually the sand will fill the gap.

Fungi time of year...

Lois and I went for a walk on the beach east of town, along with Lois's dogs.

Mars Curiosity Rover Photographs

It has been months since I checked in to see what the Mars rover, Curiosity, is up to. 

In the photo above, a green star marks the location of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover after a drive on the mission's 957th Martian day, or sol, (April 16, 2015).  The map covers an area about 1.25 miles (2 kilometers) wide.

Curiosity landed on Mars in August 2012. The drive on Sol 957 brought the mission's total driving distance past the 10-kilometer mark (6.214 miles).  The rover is passing through a series of shallow valleys on a path from the "Pahrump Hills" outcrop, which it investigated for six months, toward its next science destination, called "Logan Pass."

The rover's traverse line enters this map at the location Curiosity reached in mid-July 2014.
The base map uses imagery from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The image above shows a sloping hillside within the "Murray Buttes" region on lower Mount Sharp.
 

The above photo shows finely layered rocks within the "Murray Buttes" region on lower Mount Sharp.

Two sizes of ripples are evident in the above photo.  Sand dunes and the smaller type of ripples also exist on Earth. The larger ripples are a type not seen on Earth nor previously recognized as a distinct type on Mars.  The "Bagnold Dunes" are located on the northwestern flank of Mars' Mount Sharp.



CITES:
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Another Twelvemile Beach Sunset

The other day I camped another night with my Ann Arbor friends at Twelvemile Beach in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  We enjoyed another great sunset....