Weathering the Weather

One of the many delights of being Up North is the variability of the weather. Packing for this trip meant bringing everything from beach basking togs to leaf peeping light jackets to early winter parkas, gloves and stocking caps. And sure enough, in the days following Labor Day, we needed to pull out a wide selection of weather gear.. 

Two days after Labor Day, we had a hint of what was to come when this wall of weather made its appearance at the mouth of the bay.

By Friday, we had a full on gale blow in. We, of course, got right out there to revel in the wind, rain, and wild waves of Lake Michigan.  It really was quite fun running around from one vantage point to another to get photos. The trick, however, was figuring out how to face the wind and stay upright while taking the pictures!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Later in the day, the wind let up a bit but Taz was not real sure that being out there was such a good idea and gave me that "what are you thinking" cattle dog stare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turns out he was quite right. This photo shows the rain moving in again. I thought it would be a fine idea to stay out long enough to get a photo of the return of the storm. Silly me. The storm hit and in the three minutes it took to run from the lake shore to our house, I was soaked through to the skin despite the multiple layers of clothes I was wearing.

 

 

The next day was a bit blustery but capped the wild weather days with a stellar sunset. 

After having been cooped up a bit during the wild weather, the first calm day I decided to run from city limit sign to city limit sign just for grins. And grin I did!

The first city limit sign I arrived at was the sign where I officially reached my goal of running from Boulder to Petoskey in 2007!

Then I ran through the Bay View Woods to get to the next city limit sign at the southeast part of town. The woods, as always, offered a lovely run although heartbreaking to see the remnants of the April ice storm's destruction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The trail in

 

 

Creek through a log

Autumn mushroom crop

Ice storm damage

Good use of ice storm logs!

As was the case during my run to Michigan, Sunday (the day of the week I was doing this city limit run) proved to be loose dog day. After a very quiet run through the woods, on the trail coming up out of the woods I was greeted by three different groups of dogs - rambunctious but friendly. The big surprise was to be greeted by this kitty as I reached the neighborhood bordering the woods!

 

 

 

After the kitty I reached the southwest city limit sign, then ran on trails alongside the high school, out into the neighborhood my folks moved to after selling our Basket Shop (with our home attached), and to the southern city limit sign. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting bored with the city limit sign game, I opted for the scenic route home.

Fanciful gardens

Fast moving Bear Rive

Hints of Autumn in the trees

With another new day of good weather, we took a trip to Mackinaw City and spent a bit of time gazing at my favorite bridge: the Mackinac Bridge, a 5-mile long bridge connecting the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, opened to traffic November 1, 1957, and currently the seventh longest suspension bridge in the world (the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere). It's a beauty!

 Remember the wild waves of late Labor Day week? One week later, and we have a very very calm Little Traverse Bay (photo from one of the same vantage points of the gale pictures).

 

 

 Next up on this fine weather day: the Bay Harbor Balloon Fest, which meant hanging out at the docks and watching hot air balloons rise in the sky!

 

And what's this? Yet another good day! Cool! Time to run one of my most favorite stretches of Top of Michigan's trail system: the North Central trail from Indian River to Topinabee - wide, flat, dirt trail, trees on both sides until arriving alongside the beautiful Mullet Lake.

 

 

 

  

 

 

And now for the grand finale of this post - the astounding extraordinary stunning night sky show of the Aurora Borealis of September 14th. I went out at 9 p.m. and saw this.

 

 

So I sat down on my favorite reading bench, kept my eyes to the north and told myself to be patient. And over the next two hours was treated to a glorious celestial display.

 

 

 

 

We live in a world of wonder 

 

 

 

 

Shooting star falling into the big dipper, light aurora in the background, September 15th.