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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Ellen & Joan Have Another Excellent Adventure

Today was amazing! The morning started out cooler and the humidity backed off a little. Ellen and I decided to do something fun. I took my bike to her house, and we rode from there up Lakeshore Drive to the south side of the Ludington Channel. You can see the lighthouse on the right side of this picture. We are on the left side, and we walked out to the red and white beacon light. To get to the lighthouse via dry land requires about 10 miles!

Ludington channel

I actually hadn't realized that you could walk the south breakwall, but Ellen knew, and I was glad to learn how to get to the path.

Ludington channel

The picture above is a lot more tame than it might look. I had just stepped on to one of the big rip-rap rocks from the end of the pier. There were more beyond me- no big dropoff, although that is what it looks like.

Ellen was perfectly happy to stay on the level cement.

Ludington channel

If you look in the top picture, you'll notice a sailboat just coming into the channel. The channel leads to things like the Marina, and where the carferries are berthed (I've showed you those before). It's also the mouth of the Pere Marquette River, which I mention and visit fairly often.

We saw these cuties on the breakwall. I'm really ignorant about sandpiper identification, but I think these are just our common spotted sandpiper.

spotted sandpiper

No pictures of the rest of the trip. We stopped at a park on the ride back and ate our lunches, then rode to another park, closer to Ellen's house, and swam in the big lake. Wow!

I don't really have words to describe that. It was very windy by this time- flags were blowing out straight from the poles, and that was piling up some really big waves. They were SO much fun to ride and bounce in. The water was a lot cooler than the small lake I've been swimming in too. I actually got cooled down.

Then we finished the ride (fortunately the wind was now at our backs), and had ice tea before I needed to head for home. Total miles ridden- about 22. We spent five hours just having a blast, and it cost nothing except the gas for me to drive to Ellen's.

Sigh... on the way home I stopped at the computer shop and my laptop is D-E-A-D. No data lost, but I have to get a completely different one, and make the horrid leap to Windows 7. I have bad premonitions about it not running a lot of my software. But I'll try not to fret until I know. It's ordered. The rest of the day was so awesome that I can't even be too discouraged about the whole computer thing.

Meanwhile, I can only tolerate minimal computer time on the desktop.

See Twin Queens of the Lakes

10 comments:

RNSANE said...

What a wonderful day you had! That swim sounds really nice - I hope the lake was warmer than our 55 degree temperatures here in the Pacific!

rainfield61 said...

The birds, you and Ellen are alike.

Everyone enjoys the moment.

Duxbury Ramblers said...

What a great day, love the photos.

I love my desktop and am reluctant to spend time on my lap top, which is why I do very little on line while we are away from home.

Math Activities said...

Lovely pictures and nice photography.

vanilla said...

What a wonderful way to invest your time on a summer day!

Ann said...

A perfect way to spend a summer day. Beautiful scenery. Love the shots.
Sorry to hear about your laptop.

Rick (Ratty) said...

It's a shame about your laptop. You probably will lose some software compatibility, but maybe not as much as you think. The good thing is that Windows 7, in my opinion, is the best operating system so far, even better than XP.

Sharkbytes said...

Carmen- the big lake was 70 degrees! It fluctuates a lot because of winds, but it was nice and warm that day.

rainfield- so true for those moments

Carol- my desktop is old and slow

Hi Math- thanks for stopping by

vanilla- once in a while I have to play hookey.

Ann- it was indeed perfect- the tail wind part was quite unlikely- it always seems like there's a headwind instead

Ratty- well, I'm glad to hear you say that. I'm not afraid of it like some people seem to be, but I can't afford to upgrade the software I use all the time.

Glynis Peters said...

Love the picture of you sitting on the rocks!

I hope you get to grips with windows 7, it took me a while.

johnpeterjohn said...

nice place to enjoy with our loved ones.. I'm sure you must have had a lot of fun:)
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