Susie’s birthday trip to Chicago in early February included an early morning walk along the big lake.
Besides the obligatory photo of downtown, here are a couple of an old beach pavilion as well as an odd structure in Lincoln Park.
A sunrise paddle on White Lake in Muskegon County, Michigan.
The first paddle to Lake Michigan this year, plus a couple of pix from earlier in the week.
Growing out of a seawall at Lake Michigan on April 14, 2012
What seemed to be shaping up a clear sunny morning – at least before sunrise – turned out to be anything but. These are from before the thunderstorm.
This little darling was floating on her flower in the middle of White Lake. Rather than take her chances with passing fish and boats, she accepted a ride to shore on the deck of the kayak.
This was from a morning walk early in October. Needless to say, the sun’s appearance was very brief.
Last night’s, late night, highly spirited, high on spirits, discussion of politics in the new center our political universe, Chicago, was highly satisfactory. The early morning wake-up much less so.
A walk along Lake Michigan seemed to offer a slim chance of getting ahead of the looming headache. Grasping at that thread worked surprisingly well – and even yielded a lovely sunrise over Navy Pier.
As is normal for our weekend mornings, Chris once again decided that life is far too short to spend too much time getting too much sleep – especially if there is a possibility that someone might be irritated and irrigated into taking her out for a hike.
With the (very) early start, we made it to the big lake in time to catch the setting of last night’s beautiful full moon.
Don’t let those small speckles in the photo trick you into cleaning either your glasses or your monitor. They are the navigation lights of just a few of the many boats fishing off the channel this morning. So many, in fact, that it seemed as if the stars were testing the startling new concept of shining both above and below the horizon.
And not all of the fishing action was off-shore. While the boaters were out chasing their salmon, both the north and south walls of the channel were filled with anglers hoping to add perch onto tonight’s menu.
If you walk the beach even occasionally, you realize that this size of crowd isn’t normal, but then neither are the number of perch. The schools are so inordinately large that most of the fishermen are simply doing a quick visual reconnaissance over the wall before dropping their lines right into the middle of a lot of fish. Not quite as easy as dragging them from a barrel, but it could be worse!
Lest anyone think that this sums up the pre-dawn (!) action, at this same time, on the eastern end of the wall, the crew of the dredging ship, Carol Ann, was heading out. Their work is the reason for the large black pipe that you will find stretched across the south wall. It will be moving sand from the bottom of the waterway onto the beach.
Chris was surprisingly unimpressed by all the early AM activity and insisted on heading home for breakfast. Said insistence being equivalent to a wave insisting on going ashore, we departed. Shortly after leaving the channel, the sun finally showed up and seemed no more moved than Chris by all of the action.
The full moon over the White Lake channel on October 7, 2006.
The harvest moon over the White Lake south wall on October 7, 2006.
The full moon over Lake Michigan just south of the White Lake channel.
Nero and I left early that morning to check out the moon shadows. Unfortunately, about five minutes after shooting this picture, Nero decided he should also check out one of the local skunks.
The rest of our walk was just as smelly as it was beautiful.
My nephew and best pal, Burton Kroes paddling on Lake Michigan, May 28, 2006.
Looking from the Michillinda Resort at the May 26, 2006 sunset.