Riverwalk Flora and Fauna

 
I'm going to share more pictures from yesterday's hike. I'm so glad I went! Even though today was supposed to have about the same weather, it was cloudy and a little colder. That made yesterday seem even better.

Actually, the best event from today was that we went to see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I have to say this is the best movie I've seen in quite a few years. Highly recommended! I hope it gets Best Picture. I don't want to give anything away, but if you've seen the ads for it you've got the gist. (A boy tries to deal with losing his father after 9-11)

Back to yesterday. Even though it was sunny, because the riverwalk is shielded from the sun till midday by the buildings, there was still frost on some surfaces. I always like these kind of pictures.



Next we have red-osier dogwood. The twigs aren't always this bright, but a sunny winter day is the best chance of a good color display and this bush was putting on a great show!



Seagulls (these are herring gulls) are pretty much like Michigan rats. But I couldn't resist one picture... it's quintessential Great Lakes.



I saved the best for last. There were quite a few ducks, and I got a good picture of a female common merganser, Mergus merganser, with her crest down. There's a link at the end for a picture of one with her crest raised.



That's a better picture than this last one, but I'm excited about this one, because I've learned another new duck. This is a male goldeneye, Bucephala clangula. It's related to the buffleheads that I've gotten pretty familiar with.



It could be a busy week, but my bumper gets replaced tomorrow, so at least I'll look better while doing it! A bumperless car is pretty ugly.

	See Ducks of the Day
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Manistee Riverwalk Details

 
I can hardly believe I haven't blogged about Manistee Riverwalk before. It's a really nice urban hike. Ellen and I did it last summer. I probably get there a couple of times a year. The only bad part is that dogs aren't allowed, so Maggie had to stay home.

I'll just give you a long view of part of the pathway (it's 1.5 miles long), and then I'm going to show some details today. There are things I can share another day too, so stay tuned!



There isn't a lot of fancy architectural detail on the backs of the many buildings, but I found a few interesting things.



Some of the little doodads look more interesting in black and white. This is on the old waterworks building which is now a museum.



I liked all the different lines and angles of a bunch of stacked picnic tables behind railings.



Some buildings seem to be patched with whatever was handy.



Finally, I loved this vine, and you'll never see the pattern of the stems in the summer.



The Manistee Riverwalk will be the subject of my column at Mason County Press in a couple of weeks.

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Water- Three Phases

 
These are a couple more pictures from Tuesday when the sky was bright. It was a day for beauty to be remembered.

I like this set... water vapor in the air making patterns, water so cold in Crystal Lake it almost looked like a gel, and the ice along the shores.





Josh's eye appointment today went well. Vision in the left eye was 20-40. So both eyes are significantly improved as a result of the surgeries.

I hope to get out for a better walk tomorrow.

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Good Hopes for Joshua- Eye #2

 


Today's big event was Joshua's second cataract surgery. We'll begin to know tomorrow if it does as much for his vision in the left eye as it did for his right. But, the surgery itself was uneventful, although it took him a little longer to wake up from the anesthetic. Uneventful is a good thing.

He is shown here with Dr. Wu who did the operation. She has been fantastic. She figured out early on exactly how to treat Josh with respect and yet make sure that I got the information we needed.

Other than that I did work reports all day. The snow continues to melt.

	See Under the Knife
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Lake Michigan, (and more about yesterday)

 
Today was another work day, but not so packed as yesterday. More views of Lake Michigan... the lake is fascinating even on a gray day.

In the morning I was near Pentwater, and took this picture from a low dune on a private beach. You can tell that I'm not much higher than the lake surface.



I ended the day about 70 miles north of that location. After I finished my assignments, I was just a few miles from a great scenic overlook, so I took a little detour (and yes, I subtracted those miles and minutes from my work log... just in case my manager is reading this).

This is on a high sand bluff near the small town of Arcadia. I'm not going to give you a lot of specific info because this location will be the topic of my new column at Mason County Press next week.



Just enjoy the view! And you can see that I'm high above the beach here. I even had to use the telephoto to make this shot worth looking at.



Wouldn't this be great with a beautiful sunset? Well, let me tell you about yesterday. Yes, the point of this blog is to be positive, and the worst part of this story has a happy ending. Truth is, I had lots of great pix from yesterday, and only shared the bunnies, but I was really bummed out for a while.

At the last place I needed to survey, my camera quit working. It was giving me the infamous "Lens Error" message that spells the death of many Canon Powershot cameras. Although it has done this before, I've always been able to get it to recover, but it wasn't having any of my TLC. It simply wouldn't work.

Well... with this job, I HAVE to have a camera, and I had a high-value survey appointment for today at 10am. I always keep some extra batteries with me (ones that aren't completely dead, but can tide me over if the current set fails). But a battery swap with two extra sets did not solve it. Yikes!

So, on the 40-mile drive home, I was thinking that I'd have to go out yet that night and see if any place local had a camera I was willing to buy. I was grousing about spending most of what I've earned in January to replace a camera that is only three years old, etc, etc... I'm sure I don't need to drag this out.

Meanwhile, on the drive home, I got to witness one of the most spectacular sunsets I've ever seen (really), and I couldn't take a single picture.

The sky was changing between red and purple in slow cycles, and the sun went down as a clearly defined, oversized red ball. Every puddle or lake was reflecting the red. And then, to top it off, there was a sun pillar that lasted for about 15 minutes. It's the first time I've ever seen one at sunset. And no pictures. Sigh.

OK... the good news. When I got home, I looked up fixes for the lens error problem and found several that I hadn't ever tried. One of them worked. It also said that often, if the camera shuts down with the lens extended, only new batteries have enough juice to reset the camera and retract the lens. I got new batteries first thing this morning, and it worked fine all day.

Still, it's probably the beginning of the end for this camera. What a drag. I have to have a reliable camera. I charged up the battery pack and took my old point-and-shoot today as a backup, but it has issues too, so that's not really a solution.

	See Sun Pillar in Pink See Sun Pillar from 1999
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