This is a shot of the block M portion of my Michigan hat. This particular hat is similar to the hats that Bo used to wear when he was the coach of Michigan. I chose to take a picture of this hat because it accompanied me on most of my trips for the year. I had a similar one to it but it was blown into the Detroit River early in the year, but this one made my big trips.
January brought the beginning of my year long projects. The Mackinac Bridge picture above. The Michigan Union and Burton Memorial Tower (neither of which is pictured in this summary) and the Tahquamenon Falls which are pictured below.
This is my shot from January of the Tahquamenon Falls. This is probably my favorite from the series because of the ice on the sides. My main reason for starting this series was because I rarely see pictures of the Falls in the winter. I figured this would give me a chance to get some unique shots.
February brought me to Chicago by train because I wanted to see what a trip on the train would be like. Before this year, the last time I road on a passenger train was a trip I took to Montreal when I was a freshman in high school. So I decided to head to Chicago before I would plunk down money on the trip I would take later in the year. As you can tell from this picture, it was pretty cold.
March brought me to a couple of Eastern Michigan basketball games. I don't normally follow basketball but I found myself wrapped up in the Eastern Michigan team especially as it looked like they might do well. They almost made the NCAA tournament but fell short against Akron in the MAC playoffs.
The beginning of April took me out east to Antietam Battlefield. I had never been there before but I had heard that it was worth the trip and it was. This was the second battlefield I had visited, the first being Gettysburg and I will have to say I was more impressed with Antietam because it was almost pretty close to the way it would have appeared during the Civil War. I think I had an easier time imagining the battle here than at Gettysburg.
Since Gettysburg was only about 50 miles away from Antietam, I decided to head there for the afternoon. Sadly, an afternoon doesn't do it justice as there is quite a bit to see there. But since I had been there before, I wasn't too disappointed. It was alot better than how I remembered it because they got rid of the green monstrosity that towered over the battlefield. I wish they would make more of an effort to restore it to the shape it was in during the Civil War though.
2010 also brought me to many lighthouses. I am not sure how many I visited over the course of the year, but I managed to get to a good percentage along the Lake Michigan and Huron coasts. This particular one is the Frankfort Lighthouse during heavy winds.
April also brought me a new lens (175mm to 500mm), so I decided to try it out at the Eastern Michigan baseball game. I was pretty happy with my shots from there.
The new lens also enabled me to get some better pictures of the eagle that has been hanging around Bay City. This is one of my first shots of him and probably one of my favorites.
I also decided to catch a Tigers game.
May brought me to what I would end up calling the Mother of All Train trips. It all started because a friend was telling me about a conversation she had with a conductor on a train and he mentioned the California Zephyr. I did a little research about the train routes and decided to take the Empire Builder which goes from Chicago to Seattle, the Coast Starlight from Seattle to Emeryville (which is near San Francisco) and the California Zephyr from Emeryville to Chicago. The Wolverine connected me to Chicago from Ann Arbor.
I was a little hesitant about taking the trip because it would cover a long distance and it would involve alot of time on trains but now that I've done it, I am very happy. I had a nice relaxing time as I was riding on the trains and enjoying what the West offers and I saw places that I had never seen before.
This is one of my shots of the Glacier Mountain National Park as we passed through. It was very neat to pass through this park and it was a very beautiful park. I would like to go back one of these years.
I spent a couple of days in Seattle. This is a shot of downtown from the Space Needle.
This is a shot looking up at the Needle.
Then I took the Coast Starlight down to San Francisco.
The Golden Gate Bridge.
A shot from the Zephyr. This was as we were going through the Sierra Nevadas.
This year brought me alot of boat watching.
At beginning of July, I took a trip over to Michigan City and I took a picture of the lighthouse there.
Then I headed up the coast of Lake Michigan, I took pictures of the St. Joseph Light, the Holland Light and this is the Grand Haven light.
July also took me down to Dayton for the Air Show where I got this shot of the Blue Angels passing each other.
August was the Willow Run Airshow.
September brought me to Michigan Stadium for football games. This particular shot landed on one of the larger Michigan blogs.
September also brought me to the Cleveland Air Show. This was the first year that I had gone to it and I'll have to say I was pretty impressed. I think it was about as large as the one in Dayton.
This was from the Michigan Vs. Masschusetts game.
Then I went out to California for a business trip. I got a little time for some sightseeing. This particular picture is from Huntington Beach.
This shot was from October and it is of Crisp Point which is north of Tahquamenon Falls. It's an adventure to get back to, but it is worth it.
This is a shot from the Michigan-Michigan State game.
This is from the Michigan-Iowa game and I learned that I need to get one of those sunscreens for my lens. The lower left corner is a result of the glare from the sun.
This is a panoramic shot from the Michigan-Wisconsin game.
Early December brought me back to Southern California. Unfortunately, I didn't have as much light this time so I only got a little photographing in. This is from Hollywood.
December also brought the the completion of my 12 month series. This is another shot of Tahquamenon Falls.
December also brought me my favorite shot of the eagle in Bay City.
It has been a fun year and I have been glad to share my pictures with all the folks that come to this blog. I think I have developed this blog into something. I can't wait to see what next year brings.
Thank you all for reading this blog and I hope that you all enjoy my pictures here. And from the staff here at Michigan Exposures (me) to all of you, have a Happy New Year may it bring you a good year.
