Up north: a photographic essay
Nov. 27th, 2010 12:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valis2So my parents moved to this little teeny town that's located in the northern lower peninsula, on the west coast. Right on Lake Michigan. And even though I've visited and vacationed there many times, I still find it interesting and beautiful. I thought you guys might be interested in seeing some of the stuff I saw. And there's valis chatter to accompany, of course.
I forgot my camera for both of my trips in the past two weeks, so I took subpar pics with my phone. Forgive me in advance.
Cloud obsession, remember? These are from the first trip, a few weeks ago. At first, the weather was nice.
My camera phone is really strange. It turns the sky a much more vivid blue than it is in real life, but washes out incredible reds and oranges and pinks and reduces them to boring colors.
I was trying to get pictures of birch trees. I love the way they look against the other trees, so stark in contrast. Again we have the really vivid blue sky, which was nowhere near this vivid in reality.
Aha! A better pic of the birch trees. And you can see the weather changing, too, as we get farther up north.
Ah yes. Snow.
SNOW. grah. Keep in mind this was three weeks ago, too.
Fast-moving snow! lol.
Now I am at my parents' house. Here is my mother's rainbow assortment of visors. lol.
On the way back home, the weather was much nicer. I really wanted to take pics of the jack pine stands.
See, in the thirties, the CCC (the Civilian Conservation Corps; for more information on Michigan's CCC branch, check out this page) did a lot of outdoor projects, and one of them was to plant huge stands of jack pines all over Michigan, in perfect rows. Since I was a child, I've been completely entranced with them. Interestingly enough, they're a rather slow-growing pine, and they don't look a lot bigger than they did when I was a kid. I digress.
Recently I've noticed that some of the pines are getting cut down. And some of them have been taken out by tornadoes or microbursts, such as a stand I used to pass near Galesburg. They're a strange sort of forest because of the symmetry; it's oddly disorienting to drive past the rows.
We stopped at a gas station on the way home. Here they have huge bags of beets, carrots, and turnips for baiting game. Trucks were pulling up and loading five or six at a time as I watched.
Inside, a familiar sight; the usual gas station merchandise.
Tailored for a rural Michigan audience.
That likes to hunt.
A sunset that was really quite pretty, but the camera phone doesn't do it justice. The colors are reduced to yellow and light orange, when in fact there were a lot of colors that were incredible and it was quite intense.
This next batch is from this weekend.
This was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life. Lake Michigan is in the distance here. Taken through my parents' window; it was unbelievably windy (gusts up to 30 mph) and I didn't want to go outside. Yeah, I'm not hardcore at all.
It just got more and more gorgeous. It was absolutely incredible and the clouds kept changing colors and getting more amazing.
Even after the sun set, it still looked amazing outside.
In the morning, just before we left, I took a couple more pictures of the bay.
And then a couple more pics from the road.
And finally I got a better pic of the jack pines on the way home. This is not great, but at least you can see the rows of trees. I mean, I think you can. I'll try for another pic next time, and bring my regular camera, I think.
Hope you enjoyed this poorly photographed journey into northern Michigan!
I forgot my camera for both of my trips in the past two weeks, so I took subpar pics with my phone. Forgive me in advance.
Cloud obsession, remember? These are from the first trip, a few weeks ago. At first, the weather was nice.
My camera phone is really strange. It turns the sky a much more vivid blue than it is in real life, but washes out incredible reds and oranges and pinks and reduces them to boring colors.
I was trying to get pictures of birch trees. I love the way they look against the other trees, so stark in contrast. Again we have the really vivid blue sky, which was nowhere near this vivid in reality.
Aha! A better pic of the birch trees. And you can see the weather changing, too, as we get farther up north.
Ah yes. Snow.
SNOW. grah. Keep in mind this was three weeks ago, too.
Fast-moving snow! lol.
Now I am at my parents' house. Here is my mother's rainbow assortment of visors. lol.
On the way back home, the weather was much nicer. I really wanted to take pics of the jack pine stands.
See, in the thirties, the CCC (the Civilian Conservation Corps; for more information on Michigan's CCC branch, check out this page) did a lot of outdoor projects, and one of them was to plant huge stands of jack pines all over Michigan, in perfect rows. Since I was a child, I've been completely entranced with them. Interestingly enough, they're a rather slow-growing pine, and they don't look a lot bigger than they did when I was a kid. I digress.
Recently I've noticed that some of the pines are getting cut down. And some of them have been taken out by tornadoes or microbursts, such as a stand I used to pass near Galesburg. They're a strange sort of forest because of the symmetry; it's oddly disorienting to drive past the rows.
We stopped at a gas station on the way home. Here they have huge bags of beets, carrots, and turnips for baiting game. Trucks were pulling up and loading five or six at a time as I watched.
Inside, a familiar sight; the usual gas station merchandise.
Tailored for a rural Michigan audience.
That likes to hunt.
A sunset that was really quite pretty, but the camera phone doesn't do it justice. The colors are reduced to yellow and light orange, when in fact there were a lot of colors that were incredible and it was quite intense.
This next batch is from this weekend.
This was one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life. Lake Michigan is in the distance here. Taken through my parents' window; it was unbelievably windy (gusts up to 30 mph) and I didn't want to go outside. Yeah, I'm not hardcore at all.
It just got more and more gorgeous. It was absolutely incredible and the clouds kept changing colors and getting more amazing.
Even after the sun set, it still looked amazing outside.
In the morning, just before we left, I took a couple more pictures of the bay.
And then a couple more pics from the road.
And finally I got a better pic of the jack pines on the way home. This is not great, but at least you can see the rows of trees. I mean, I think you can. I'll try for another pic next time, and bring my regular camera, I think.
Hope you enjoyed this poorly photographed journey into northern Michigan!
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Date: 2010-11-27 10:41 pm (UTC)Yeah, I wasn't too unhappy about it! Except for its complete inability to capture a sunset properly. :(
And yes, those jackpines are rather surreal, all lined up like soldiers. They're kind of creepy. And no wonder they get so much blowdown, planting them in such narrow strips (sorry, I'm from BC, where everyone knows way more than they need to about replanting patterns :D).
I wish I had more pictures--most of the jack pine stands are huge and go back for acres. People are starting to cut down sections of them and plant fields or build houses. That first narrow section that I took pictures of was one where a farmer cleared them out and built a field, and just left the edge of them.
The last pic is better--it shows how deep the stands usually are, though I wish the pic were lighter so you could see. Next time I'll try to take better pics. :)
Glad you enjoyed them! :) I love sharing them.