Backblogging: 500th post! 5 gorgeous views!

Prairie meets lake.
Clear water, smooth round stones.
A sandy beach with driftwood--or is that a lioness napping between tufts of grass on an African plain?
Humans meet Lake.
Sunset over Southport point. All from June 2011.

When I started this blog nearly 3 years ago, I could never have predicted what was to come: nearly 30,000 pageviews, a google hit with a post about icebergs, an art exhibit of some of these very photos, visitors from all over the world. But the thing that keeps me blogging is the reason I started in the first place: a reason to notice and share the beauty of this great natural wonder that is part of my very lucky everyday existence. Thank you for visiting.

In Honor and in Memory

Your silent tents of green

We deck with fragrant flowers

Yours has the suffering been,

The memory shall be ours.

~~~~~~~

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Decoration Day

Always Look on the Bright Side

My flight was fogged in on Thursday, which meant the Friday morning flight was very early. Lucky me!
A much more industrial sunrise than I am used to on Lake Michigan.
But so colorful.
Farewell Toronto, Queen City of Lake Ontario! From 4/8/11.

You Want "Icebergs" in Lake Michigan?

This is the best we can do (unlike this). Big, huge chunks of snow washed into the harbor channel by last week's big storm/waves.
The second "iceberg" (in back) is piled up along the concrete breakers.
For scale.
Here's one giant non-eroded pile of snow on shore. There are piles like this all along the shoreline. And all this after several days of melting in the warm (40 degrees!) temperatures.

My Ships Have Come In

Tall ships visiting our humble harbor.
Looking out to sea (Lake).
Or, almost. Channel was too shallow for this ship to come in.

Picture Perfect Saturday

Saturday was a perfect day. Here's one of the beaches, filled with happy bathers (that's the pier, in front).
Look at the color of that water.
That's a pleasure boat, in every sense of the term (if you click twice on the picture, you can read its name, which is KNOT to Worry).
Later in the evening, another beach, taken from the bikepath. Just after this, we passed the marina, filled with boats and people spending their first weekend on the Lake. And a family of ducks, mommy carefully shepherding a crew of babies between the boatslips. This weekend has been one of those when I can't believe how lucky I am to be living here, right on the shore of this stunning natural wonder. All from Saturday, 5/29/10.

Glassy

Lake, and...
...harbor. Luck o' the Irish to you there, fisherman. From Wednesday 3/17.

Twain, meeting

Here's a flock of Canada Geese.
And here's a flock of seagulls.
Sharing the same small harbor space. From Sunday, 2/14.

New Way to See Gray

The dull gray weather demanded a change of venue. This is a long view of the harbor.
And the short view, complete with Canada Geese. I just missed getting them in flight.

Hunkering down

And I also drove past the harbor on the way to work, and saw all of these geese (and ducks?) hunkering down, trying to stay warm in the newly forming ice.

Morning Light: 4 views

This morning I took the lakefront route to work and took this pic at a park near my home.
Here is the empty harbor boatslip at sunrise
And the lovely tree at about 11am
Also 11am--just a perspective shift to the left.