Sand Dune Adventure -- Another One!

A couple of days ago, friends Kim Amthor and Wendy Lynne and I snowshoed from the Sable Visitor's Center to Sable Lake, up into the dunes, across to Lake Superior, and back. It was cloudy but not too windy, so it was a great snowshoe.

The patterns in the snow were magnificent -- almost agate-like in places.



The depth gauge was located around ten feet from shore in Sable Lake.



The views were spectacular.

Winter Scenes

At the request of my son, Jonathan, I am going to commit the time to update the blog more often. I finished the book yesterday and sent the text files off for pre-production. It will take around a week to convert the files from Microsoft Word into what ever the magic software that the printer needs. Once the printer gets the files, it will be 3 1/2 to 4 months before we get finished copies of the book.

The miscellaneous winter shots include another sunset taken from the shore of the Big Manistique Lake in Curtis, MI. Although my friends and I all brought our snowshoes, there was so little snow there that we didn't need them.




Here are a couple photos of my friends, Sandee and Dianna, skiing in the Seney Refuge.




When I left my house this afternoon to drive over to the cross country ski trails in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, I snapped this photo of the sand dunes in the distance.



Here is a shot I took on the ski trail. It is Sable River, not far from where it flows out of Sable Lake.



This snow gauge is on ski trial A. We get an inch or two of snow every once in a while to make up for the condensing of the snow pack. As a result, we have had a steady amount on the ground of 12 inches for more than a month.



I took this photo from the grocery store, looking east toward the bay. Even though we have not had a lot of snow, there is still quite a mound behind the Post Office Museum.

Seney Refuge Ski

This past weekend was our annual All-Nighters weekend. It began 23 years ago when some of the women from Grand Marais and the surrounding area got together without husbands and kids. Now all of our kids are adults, but we continue the tradition. This year we met at a resort in Curtis. The first photo was taken of sunset over the Big Manistique Lake. We learned from the owner of the resort that it is the second biggest lake in the Upper Peninsula, with Lake Goegebic being the largest. The Big Manistique Lake is 10 miles by 8 miles! The remaining photos were taken on the way back to Grand Marais when Sandee Sibbald, Dianna Bell, and I skied the Seney National Wildlife Refuge trails. It was sunny and beautiful outside and the trails were in terrific shape. We had not skied the refuge for a couple of years so it was fun getting back there.

Sable Dunes Snowshoe

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day without much wind. My friend, Kim Amthor, and I had promised each other that we would trek into the dunes the first time that such a day presented itself. We parked at the Sable Visitor's center and snowshoed to Sable Lake, before heading north into Sable Dunes. We snowshoed from "lake to lake" and had a picnic on the bluff overlooking Lake Superior. What a great three hours it was. Notice the lone snowmobiler risking the ice on Sable Lake in the first photo. The last two photos show the meager icebergs. We have not had our usual amount of snow, which is what is needed to build big icebergs. Winter, of course, is not over yet.

Winter Views from around Grand Marais

I had to go to the museum today to pick up some items for a customer. As long as I was in town, I took a picture of the museum, one of the buildings on Coast Guard Point, a snowmobiler, and the channel. We have had periods this winter when the bay has been frozen, but the channel has not even come close to freezing up. The snow piled up on the building is deceiving. This garage is located right next to the road, so the snowplow has no where else to put the snow.







When I skied today, I snapped a photo of the trail, and also of the picnic tables at Sable Falls that are waiting for summer tourists.

Winter Snowshoe

My friend, Kim Amthor, and I went snowshoeing yesterday, even though the wind chills were well below zero. We decided to go from the Sable Visitor's Center, toward Sable Falls, since most of the trail is in the woods and protected from the wind. Since we both love the sand dunes, we had to at least take a peak. The wind was blowing so hard up there, that we only took time to look around and snap off a picture, then we headed back into the protection of the woods. Sable River, or Second Creek as we locals call it, is so beautiful this time of year.

Cold and Blustery

After having temperatures in the mid-30s last weekend, the bottom has now dropped out of the thermometer. The ambient temperature this morning is in the single digits in Grand Marais. But with 20 to 30 mph winds, the wind chill is between -15 and -19 degrees!



Yesterday was cold, too, but the wind wasn't quite as bad. Dianna Bell and I did go cross country skiing anyway. Below are a couple of shots I took while out on the trail in the national park.




As I was checking my photos, I realized I had not posted these pictures taken in the Burt Township School Forest when I skied with friends Wendy Lynn, Kim Amthor, and Kathy Correll. For those of you who have explored the school forest, which is the largest school forest in the state of Michigan at around 1,600 acres, you'll recognize the chimney. This was the site of a one-room school building that unfortunately burned down several decades ago.






Editing of the manuscript is going well. I've received back a few of the copies that I sent out for review. The photographer, Tom, is also finalizing the photos. We are hoping to send the files off for pre-printing production sometime in the next two weeks! Below is yet another photo that will appear in the book. This is a picture of an iris agate from Tennessee. This optical property has been known for more than a hundred years. Although it seems that most iris agates have incredible tight bands, this is not the only characteristic that causes the iris effect. Scientists have determined that an agate will iris within a range of a hundred to more than 15,000 bands per inch, and up. Instead, the key factor is that the alternating layers must have higher and lower refractive indices. When light travels from air into a substance, its velocity is reduced. This change of speed at the surface interface causes light passing between the substances to be bent, or refracted. When white light is refracted, as when passing through a prism, waves of different frequencies (i.e., the various colors) are bent at different angles. The result is that light is dispersed and spread out into its component colors. When droplets of water in the air form the refracting interface, the result is a rainbow. When this happens between agate bands, the result is an iris effect As with most of the pictures in the book, this one was taken by Tom Shearer.

Taquamenon Falls and Canada Lakes Skies

After all the long days working on the book, my friend Diana Bell suggested that we head out of town on a ski trip. It was also a belated birthday present, which was terrific. Living on the south shore of Lake Superior, we don't see the sun much in the winter. However, last week we had at least 3 days with sunshine, including Thursday when we went out of town.

The temperature was around 30, but it had been cold at night so the skiing was fantastic. We skied at Canada Lakes, located a few miles southeast of Newberry, MI, for around 3 hours. What a great ski that was.







After we left Canada Lakes, we drove north through Newberry and went to the lower Taquamenon Falls. We skied to the falls, took the skies off, and walked down the steps. I always love going to the falls. There wasn't much ice on the falls given the high flow rate, but there was a lot of ice -- including some blue ice -- hanging from the walls of the gorge around the falls area. Beautiful.

Finally, before heading home, we had a nice dinner at the brewpub located on site in the state park. It was a great day.