I said they deserve a post of their own. I have enough pictures to make a separate post! I’m assuming they must have the perfect climate in which to grow. Every house had either a front yard full of flowers, or at least window boxes.
Category: Travel
Call of the Fall part 2
We biked around the perimeter of the island one day, approximately 7 miles. We took a picnic lunch along to eat about half way through. It was a cool but sunny day.
The water around the island was crystal clear!
Another day we walked a big loop through and around town.
The Grand Hotel is indeed grand! The cost to stay here could also be considered grand.
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The stables where all the horses/carriages are kept.
The Governor of Michigan’s island vacation home:
For some people, Mackinac fudge is their thing.
The ice cream with fudge available on the island was definitely my thing! 🙂
One evening as the evening light was waning, I walked into town to get some pictures. These are some of my favorite from this island!
This was taken on a Saturday evening. The crowds of the day had apparently been there only for the day. These streets were bustling with people earlier that day but were quite by evening.
Like I said, fudge is a really big thing here.
And my very favorite evening shot!
Here’s a travel photography tip for you … If you don’t have a tripod along to take a slow shutter speed shot like the one above (1/20th of a second), find something to lean up against, take a deep breath, and shoot. Or prop your elbows against your stomach, take and deep breath and shoot. Or find something stationary to lay the camera on.
Call of the Fall
When you take an amazing trip there’s something about it that calls exactly 12 months later. In my case it’s Fall Weather that triggers those feelings. I’ve been to Montana, Colorado, Michigan and New England in the Fall. I’ve even been to Boston in the Fall (cue the Veggie Tales song Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything). I’ve lived through 3 beautiful falls in Northwestern Ontario. While our weather in Georgia isn’t exactly crying fall yet, it does whisper it in the mornings and evenings. It is on the way.
The Michigan trip came 2 years ago the end of September/beginning of Oct. My sister and I flew to Detroit and were met there with a great group of girlfriends from Ohio. We motored up to Mackinaw City, Michigan. I hadn’t been to northern Michigan before and was struck with the similarities of the “wilderness” to NW Ontario! It almost felt like coming home. We overnighted at a lovely motel on Lake Huron (I believe). We could see Mackinac Island in the distance and that is where we headed the next day.
Another ferry headed the other direction.
Coming into the harbor at Mackinac Island reminded me of Martha’s Vineyard, with Victorian mansions along the water.
I’ll admit I was a little leery of the possible “touristy” (which my mind usually reads hustly-bustly busy) Mackinac Island. I needn’t have worried. Yes, it is touristy, it is laid-back and charming! I highly recommend it, especially in the fall. I imagine summer could be kind of crazy with tourists. The Saturday we were there was by far the busiest day.
All transportation on the island is by bike or horse-drawn carriage/wagon/cart. The only exceptions are emergency vehicles.
Accommodations on the island are not cheap. Houses further inland are easier on the budget, be we decided to splurge a little and stayed at lovely old inn. Our rooms were actually not in the inn but in the newer 3 story building behind it. There was a lovely garden between the inn and our building and a wedding took place on Saturday afternoon.
The top of our building is the long roof line in the center of the photo.
The front porch of the inn was our meeting place since it was a lovely place to meet and we were within easy walking distance of everything so we kind of did our own thing for a bit of the day.
Inside the inn:
The town isn’t very big but has a nice variety of shops and restaurants.
The beautiful flowers deserve a post of their own.
The man who lived beside the inn had 2 beautiful miniature collies.
One last shot for this post. Don’t worry, I have many more photos to show you!!
Same house later in the day.
Lancaster County Tourist
Last summer I had the privilege of making a quick trip to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania for a wedding. I always love visiting this area, especially since it usually includes spending time with cousin Gina and her family! Although I was only there for about 36 hours, we got a lot of fun things packed in. After shopping on Saturday, Gina asked if there was anything else I wanted to do. I said that driving through the countryside and getting some pictures of would be great fun for me. She is surrounded by farming country, living on a dairy farm where her husband grew up, so she knew where to take me. We tried to be as discreet as possible, knowing the Amish would prefer to not have their pictures taken.
Since it was the beginning of June, there was still some planting going on.
And lots of farmers were out working on this Saturday afternoon.
They are headed to the fields with tobacco for transplanting.
When I was about 13, my family did some truck crops and I got in on transplanting cabbage.
Now that’s a basket of eggs! (Yes, I do have a keen sense of the obvious! 🙂 )
Not to be missed are the flowers.
And in particular, peonies. Sigh.
One of Gina’s friends graciously offered that I could come pick a bouquet to take home with me but we ended up leaving the area sooner than anticipated and I wasn’t able to take her up on her offer.
We stopped in at an Amish school which was already closed for the summer.
It was locked but we could peek in the windows.
Those all-important rooms out the back.
The abandoned-for-the-summer playground.
More transplanting
Getting the buggies shined up for Sunday.
Big barns and house
Just beautiful!
Weekend Trip + Callaway Gardens
It’s time to shake the dust off of this blog! A lot has happened since I last blogged but I’ll blog later about those life-altering things.
This past weekend my Mom, sister and I decided to take a trip to see another sister and family. We had a long, lovely weekend with them! They own/run a deli and I’ve never been there over open hours so we left Friday in time to eat lunch there. Yum and yum!
We enjoyed the brilliant fall colors on the way up. The south had a dry fall, as well as early cold temperatures. These 2 combined to make a more-colorful-than-normal fall foliage. At my sister’s place, they had 2 trees that we oohed and ahhed over! We don’t have that brilliant color in our corner of the state.
On Saturday we ladies headed to Callaway Gardens. The fall foliage was past it’s peak here as well but there were still spots of color. The weather was sunny and cool and we were glad for extra layers. Our first point of interest was the Birds of Prey show. They brought out 2 owls and 2 hawks. The handlers had them fly over the audience throughout most of the show. It was interesting and fun as ducked out of the way.
Would you say he had his eye on me?
He actually had his eye on the handler behind us who was putting out meat scraps for him, but …. his flight path took him right over my niece and I and twice the tip of his wings brushed the top of my head.
This is a Great Horned Owl.
They also had a Barred Owl:
He looked a bit less intimidating and mostly sleepy.
There was a Red-Tailed Hawk:
We walked to the chapel in the woods just in time to hear the organ music that is played Saturday and Sunday afternoons. There is a big pipe organ and the player did it justice. The music rang throughout the park.
The stained glass from the inside:
Dogwoods in stained glass.
The organ pipes.
My niece’s friend works there and was able to spend an hour with us. She took a picture of our crew.
Lovely backlighting
More of the park:
And in case you’ve been wondering what an armadillo looks like, here is one that was rooting around beside the path.
He was so tame I could’ve petted him. I could hardly get him distracted enough to get a picture without his head buried in leaves.
A beautiful camelia.
The horticultural center, where-in were tropical greenhouses as well as arid ones.
This is a Full Moon Maple and if I lived in the right growing zone, which I don’t (boo-hoo), I would plant a couple of them. The leaves had varying shades of red, orange and yellow.
There is also a butterfly house. You can see cocoons, some nearly ready to hatch, some in the process of hatching, and freshly hatched butterflies waiting to be released into the very warm and humid atmosphere of the tropical butterfly house.
One more pretty fall scene from up the road from my sisters’ house.
I didn’t take any pictures of the delicious food we had all weekend! We ate at a southern home-cooking restaurant at the edge of the park on Saturday and they had the cheesiest mac and cheese ever!!!! Way delicious!! Sunday night my sister made a Laosian noodle soup that my stomach is still begging for!
Happy Fall, Y’all! Well, I guess it’s more like winter. Tonight the temps are dipping into the 20s here in south Georgia. Brrr.