Mental Health weekend

Thanks to Linda for keeping Chris with her, Deb and I were able to take a much needed mental health mini vacation this weekend. I still can't handle long car drives so we chose to check out a small area of Michigan. Chris had been scheduled to do a class trip on Friday but I knew he had not returned the permission slip for that trip so we decided to pull him from school for the day and dropped him in London before driving to Sarnia to cross into Michigan. We travelled to Bad Axe, where we attempted to visit the petroglyphs but the site was closed, covered up and had construction type chain fencing to keep people away from the ancient artworks. We did enjoy a stroll along the paths there and found two of the swinging bridges (one seen in picture here) spanning a small creek. Next day we headed for Midland to check out the "Tridge". Unfortunately our camera wasn't behaving and we only got one shot of one section of the three linked span. This footbridge is shaped somewhat like the center of a peace sign. The bridge was built over the intersection of two rivers. Very nice and there was beautiful parkland on all sides. From there we turned back toward home and drove through Frankenmuth. That looked like a huge tourist destination despite the fact that this is not really tourist season. Too many people and far too much walking for me...we continued to drive straight through town and on to the next. We spent the night in Imlay City before returning home today. At the motel we were able to enjoy some exercise in the nicely heated pool. It was a very relaxing trip and it was great to get away from it all. Thanks Linda!

Chris says he had a great weekend too. He claims to have done a couple of all nighters while watching tv and is paying the price now. He was in bed around 5 pm for the night in order to catch up on his sleep before heading back to school tomorrow.

Aldborough Memorial Forest

This morning we took our little black visitor out to the nearby Aldborough Memorial Forest for a nice stroll in the woods. It is amazing how beautiful the weather is for the middle of November. We noticed that even nature is very messed up by the mild temps. You can see in today's pictures that the tulip trees are showing flowers that appear very close to opening. We also saw many small tree branches which had fallen from trees but had buds on littering the forest floor. Back home again I snapped a few shots of our prized rose which contiues to bud and bloom in our front garden. I could handle this sort of weather permanently.CLICK ON ANY PICTURE FOR A BETTER VIEW

Warwick Conservation area

What a beautiful day again for a stroll on this Wednesday November 11th morning. This time we took Ebony out to Warwick Conservation area, another park that has cliffs along lake Erie shoreline. We noticed the two trees which have grown together atop one of those cliffs for the first time today. We were quite surprised because we have been to this park many times before and never seen them. They are very much at the edge so it remains to be seen just how long they stay standing together before topppling over as so many others have in recent years.

beautiful day for a stroll

We enjoyed this first day of November with a short stroll at Pearce Park. We had to wade through the leaves on the roadway as you can see. Yes, that is a road Deb is standing on although the entire surface is covered with freshly fallen leaves. It was great to be able to get out and enjoy the beautiful clear sky and I snapped the bare old tree which was nicely framed by the light clouds.

Eagles in the Fall

It was a pleasant surprise yesterday to see this pair of Bald Eagles sitting at the top of this dead tree on the lake Erie shoreline. This is a tree which was favored by a pair of young Eagles last year and perhaps this is the same pair, now grown into their white coloring. They actually sat and allowed us to take these pictures and watch them from the roadway. We didn't try to get closer because we saw no need to disturb them from their sunny perch.