Coast Guard Station, Presque Isle and Marquette, Michigan Photos

I have always

and

will always

be

totally in love with

Lake Superior.

I am lucky enough to live within 45 minutes of it in one direction

and

35 minutes in another direction.

I have lived in Marquette, Michigan

several times in my life, off and on.

(Click on THIS LINK and the link above to see where it is and here to learn more about it).

Now, I live near there so I can visit whenever the longing for the Great Lakes

gets to me...

which usually is every month or so.

So, today, I thought I would show you some pictures

I took earlier this fall, just as the leaves were beginning to change

in Marquette.

Everyone that visits Marquette quickly becomes aware of it's Presque Isle

which is a little peninsula perserved for the public

that juts out into the lake

and is a beautiful place to drive around and hike in.

This is the lighthouse there and the breakwater:

The Marina:

And probably the most photographed building in Marquette, the Coast Guard Station:

And, you can see WHY, right?

Big ore boats come in to pick up iron ore at the ore docks.

This photo is of some oredocks that

no longer are used...

the town is trying to figure out what to do with them.

One entrepeuner wanted to put a restaurant

on the top of them, but the city denied them...

so ideas are still being thought of for this wondrous structure:

Another view of the lighthouse, by the croppings of rock:

Loved this little seagull with one leg:

There are lots of spots like this all along Presque Isle's Lake Superior with rocky cliffs:

If you ever get the chance to come and vacation

anywhere in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan,

please make an effort to do so....

it is full of nature and beauty and wonderful, sincere, honest folks who love tourists...

and make Marquette one of your prime spots to visit!!

Oh, and if you DO come here? Please let me know!

We will meet and have coffee overlooking some of these wonderful sights!

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Remember to enter the FREE PHOTO CONTEST!!

November's theme is:

CLOUDS!!!

Send me your photo following THESE RULES

before midnight on Nov. 30, 2010

More of the U.P. Spring!

Today, I will still continue to show pictures of

our beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan spring

as it unfolded...

This tulip was about to bloom...but I loved the promise of all of the colors about to burst in this one~!:

A grackle in flight toward the newly sprouted leaves on the tree:

A chipping sparrow with "that look" in his eyes..

(you know the one)..

the "don't you have more SEED for me?" look!:

Every spring I await the

apple blossoms.....

here they are,

just coming out!:

A fresh tulip!:

A geese family!:

I love those fuzzy babies!:

I bet they are a handful to watch every second!!:

But, worth every second of the care they take!

In future posts, I caught closeup pictures of these little ones as they grew...

stay tuned!!!

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A reminder:

Don't forget to enter the JUNE Free PHOTO CONTEST.

June's theme is:

FLOWERS!

Enter your photo by midnight, June 30, 2010

following THESE RULES.

Anyone stopping by the blog..a note to you:

you don't have to be a blogger to enter, you don't have to be a semi-pro photographer..

we do this for fun! Go ahead and send me your best flower photo...

who knows? You might just win!

And WHAT do you win?

A widget that you can proudly display forever on your blog

that says you won!

The Vacation to Florida Photos (Finally!).....Part ONE

Finally!

I am ONE HAPPY WOMAN.

We picked up our computer yesterday and I was a busy little bee downloading all of my vacation photos into my EXTERNAL drive (yep, this old dog CAN learn new tricks) and now I can show you the long-awaited vacation photos of our trip to Florida

that we took before Christmas.

For those of you that don't know, we live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (we residents are known as YOOPERS..get it? from the U.P.).

So to get to Florida, we have to travel from mid U.P. going west and then south to get to the mighty Mackinac Bridge and cross where the Great Lakes meet

to get into the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.

So off we started.

Before we got 100 miles from home, we were driving down the highway and saw a HUGE bird up in a tree.

We looked at each other, and my husband (knowing me WELL)

said:

"So I am going to have to turn the car around now, aren't I?"

God, I love that man.

And we did.

So I could get THIS picture!:

He was just hangin' around the highway, watching traffic.

My husband waited in the nice, heated car while I braved wind and cold

to get more photos of him:

Gosh, he was gorgeous.

It is my theory that I wasn't the ONLY photographer that he has been patient with.

He didn't seem skiddish at all and just sat there and posed.

Of course I took many more photos of him other than the ones I am showing you today.

But here is one more (because I just can't help myself):

Ok.

And just ONE close-up.

Because when you are THIS handsome, you deserve a closeup:

My husband was afraid I was going to be so distracted I would step out in the middle of the highway and get hit by a semi. So he was glad when I finally returned to the car and then I begged him to turn up the heater on the car because I don't think I could feel my fingers anymore.

About two hours later, we were in the south part of the U.P. and cruising along US 2, which parallels beautiful Lake Michigan:

As you can see, when we left on our trip, the U.P. did not have any snow yet.

Here is another shot of Lake Michigan:

As you drive along the Lake, you wait for a glimpse of the huge Mackinac Bridge.

I wanted to get out and get a picture of when you first see the bridge from the highway, but my husband wanted to keep on rolling (since the eagle photo shoot put us behind schedule), so since I had to travel with him for the next two weeks, I figured I better let him have that one, so everybody in the car would continue to be happy. :=}

So, when we got to the bridge, I took this shot through the car window:

Continuing on the bridge:

Almost half way!:

I loved this dark exposure of being almost under the arch with the dark, cloudy skies:


And the rest of the day, we made it all the way through lower Michigan and stopped for the night about 20 miles from the Michigan/Ohio border.

Since we didn't see anything thrilling all the way through Ohio, I didn't take any photos there....
tomorrow I will show you some shots from Kentucky and Georgia....
and then after that I will post all the Florida photographs.

I am so happy that I have my computer back, safe and sound and that they found all of my old photographs. I have them stored safely on my external hard drive, so we should be good to go now.
Remember everybody:
think about submitting a photo to the photo contest by Jan. 31st...this month's theme is "Something Rusty"......

From the Forgotten Archives!...an Autumn View

In looking at my archives of photos, I realized yesterday that I had forgotten to share one set of pictures that I took back in the beginning of October.

About a mile out of the town of Marquette, Michigan in the U.P., there is a small mountain called Marquette Mountain that you can drive your car up to the top of.

We drove up one day and took some pictures of the town while the leaves were still in full color.

This view is looking out at the town of Marquette and a little west over the rolling hills:

This is the view of the city.

You can clearly see Lake Superior and the ore docks protruding out into the lake:

The beautiful woods west of the city:

The view of the city and the lake from a little further away:

Marquette is the home of Northern Michigan University, (where my husband and I graduated from).

It has a huge indoor football stadium, in fact the largest wooden dome football stadium in the U.S.A.!

I have labeled it in this photo.

You can see the historic city hall building in the photo, which I labeled for you, too:

Beautiful Lake Superior and the city!:

It is hard to believe that all that gorgeous color is gone now:




A while back, I posted pictures of beautiful Presque Isle on my blog.
The land the furthest in this photo is where I took those pictures.
The founding Fathers of the city of Marquette preserved that land for the people of the city for the future.
I am so glad they did! It has gorgeous views of Lake Superior from all three sides of the peninsula:






The view of one of the lighthouses from Mount Marquette:

This red Coast Guard Station is one of the landmarks of the city of Marquette.

It seems like all people that go down on the Lake Superior beach take photos of it from there, which is on the opposite side of the rock cropping you can see of it in this photo.

But, I liked this view of it too!:

If you ever visit our "neck of the woods", I hope you take the time to go up to the top of Marquette Mountain to see the city of Marquette.

It only takes about 5 minutes and it is well worth it!

Crisp Point Lighthouse !!

When we recently visited my Blogger buddy Cathy, from Yooper Yarns, who lives near Newberry, Michigan, she recommended that we go on a side trip to see something spectacular.

She was referring to Crisp Point lighthouse, located on the shores of Lake Superior. For a map, please go to THIS link.

She knew I loved lighthouses, and especially Lake Superior lighthouses, so I was happy to hear of this site and immediately planned to visit it.

Please go to the link highlighted above for the lighthouse, it is well worth your time to investigate where it is and to plan a trip there.

Just look at this wonderful little lighthouse!:

And the beautiful Lake Superior shore it overlooks:

When I was taking pictures of the shore it sits beside, I noticed the lighthouse's shadow in the water:

The most wonderful thing, is that you drive through the scenic woods to get there and then come upon a small parking lot and there it is!:

When we got there, we were thrilled to see the building was open and the sign said we could climb the stairs INSIDE of it to the top!

I had never been inside a lighthouse and allowed to climb to the top before, so I was so excited to do so!:

This is about half way up the lighthouse as you climb the stairs, looking out to the west:

And this is at the top, looking to the east, down the shores of beautiful Lake Superior!: (the subtle shadows at the top of the picture are a reflection of the windows going around the top on the other side):

Again, this is at the top, looking to the west of the lighthouse at the Lake Superior shore. Again, the subtle shadows in the picture are the windows of the lighthouse behind me as I snapped the photo. I liked the ghostly shadows being in the picture!):

Here is a shot of the lighthouse from the east beach. We were way up under the red roof when I took the previous pictures:

I will remember this little lighthouse for quite some time, as it my first climb in one:

Before we left, we had to take a long beach walk, hand in hand.

It was cold that day (only in the 40's F.) and very windy, as you can see by the white caps on the lake.

But we stayed warm from the wonderful experience and hike:

And, of course, I couldn' t leave without a closeup of the driftwood tree root, now could I?:

Thanks, Cathy and Dan

for telling us about this little lighthouse and recommending we visit it!

It was perfect.

The U.P. is on FIRE!!!

Our Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan is coming alive with glorious autumn colors.

We took our last ride (before storing our pontoon away for the winter) on our lake on Friday night, and it couldn' t have been a more perfect evening out on the lake.

There was barely any wind and the sun was setting and lighting up the shoreline of autumn colors like fire!

Here is a shot of the far shore as we headed out on the lake in our pontoon:

We are about 55% color now. Some of the trees are still green, and others are red or orange:

But, in the setting sun, the reds and oranges become brilliant, like they are on fire!:

It was about 7:30pm and about 70 degrees. A perfect night!:

Everywhere you looked, nature was putting on an art show!:

We couldn't believe how beautiful the shores looked:

I didn't want the evening ride to end:

But the sun was setting rapidly, making shadows..telling us this Heaven had to go to sleep for the night:

So, we headed towards home.

But I had to take ONE more shot before we headed in.

I am SO glad I did.

I think it might be my favorite:

I have been going out into the woods and trying to capture autumn pictures before all the leaves fall off.

Here, it can happen very quickly.

Some falls, the leaves are glorious for about a month.

Some autumns, we get wind and rain after a week or two of color and it blows them all off, quickly.

Not being a gambler, I am outside now everyday trying to capture colored leaves before Mother Nature asserts herself and brings on bare limbs and cold winds.

Wish me luck with the race.

I only want two more weeks...

just two more weeks.....