Skiing the National Park's Trails

Yesterday it was sunny with temperatures on the high teens -- perfect weather for cross country skiing.  Unfortunately, the recent melt down has impacted the trails.  The icy base reduced the quality of the track.  Plus there were patches of bare ground and/or ice and water melt across the trail in a few places.  But it was still worth it to be out there!

 

Beginning of trail leading out of the parking lot...

 

The shelf fungi below was around 18 inches wide.

Stand of white birches near Sable Falls....

It is hard to tell from the photograph below, but the picture shows the hill on trail C.

We still have snow

Despite a couple of winter thaws, we still have snow in Grand Marais.  My house is located on top of a hill.  When we have winds from the north, the snow blows up the hill and over and around my house causing it to pile up on the south side of my house.

I very much enjoyed watching the UofM basketball team win the Big Ten Conference championship!  This is especially true after their plane skidded off the runway on their way to the tournament.

School Forest Hike

Yes -- hike.  There was so much snow melt the other day with rain that we were not confident we could ski.  Lois Fite and I decided to hike, which was not a problem since the snow was compacted and solid.  As it turns out, we could have skied down the road without damaging our skies, but it was a great hike anyway.

The river had more ice than we expected....

More Florida Photos

Today I will post the rest of the photos from my quick trip to Florida.

Views from my uncle and aunt's balcony....

Restaurant decoration...

Sunset...

While golfing my uncle spotted this blue heron.

Red flag conditions.  I wanted to swim in the ocean, but not with these windy conditions.

Views from the air during my flight....

Lake Michigan...

Marquette...

My friend in Marquette, Helen, and I tried to hike back to a waterfall.  However, the wind was gusting to 60 mph.  Trees were breaking and falling so we decided to not continue.  Too bad because it was beautiful out.  Thanks to Helen and Jimmy for their incredible hospitality and for the airport transportation.

Quick Trip to Florida

My business Visa credit card is changing reward programs so I had some points I had to use up or I would lose them.  I decided to take a quick trip to Florida to visit my only aunt and uncle.  Thanks to Lynne and Doug for a wonderful few days in the Fort Walton Beach area. 

The visit was fantastic, but travel to and from there was not.  We could not fly out of Marquette at all due to ice, snow, and wind.  So the airlines transported all of us by bus to Chicago.  It was a very long nearly eight hour bus ride.  I missed my connections and had to spend the night in Charlotte, NC.  On the way back I got as far as Chicago.  We were on the plane ready to take off when they decided we could not land in Marquette due to wind and low clouds.  I spent the night at the airport since I refused to pay for a second non-budgeted hotel room.  Oh well.  The moral of this story is do not try to fly out of Marquette in the winter.

Here are a few photos I took from the plane while landing....

View from my uncle and aunt's balcony....

The first evening I went for a walk and took a few photos...

There were several tall birds sitting just off shore.  I think they are blue herons.

Restaurant down the beach...