Just Messing Around...

It was kind of a blah day today. Off and on raining, but I figured I would try some geocaching and if I saw something worth taking a picture of, I would. I started to look at the puddles on the ground and tried this.

Ypsilanti - Water Tower Dusk and Night

One of my favorite subjects is still the Ypsilanti Water Tower. It is a very unique structure.

For some fun, I decided to do some night pictures. It's a little trickier to get night pictures. It requires a tripod but there is a little more flexibility because you can really mess with the exposure to get some cool effects.


This is a picture of the statue of General Ypsilanti at the front of the tower. Because it's a longer exposure time, you can see the motion of the flag in the background. I was really trying to get a picture of the moon in the picture but the moon requires different exposures, otherwise it looks like the ball of gas like in this picture.

Same night, but a shot of the tower. Again, I was trying to get the moon in the picture.

A dusk shot.


A dusk shot intentionally underexposed to get the shadowed effect.

And another dusk shot.

The University of Michigan Law Library

The University of Michigan Law Library is one of my favorite buildings on the campus. It is a very neat building to wander around. The architecture is fantastic. The stained glass is pretty cool too.

It was built around the same time as the rest of the Law Quad.


This is as you are entering the library. The friezes on the buildings are pretty neat.


This is a stained glass of the University seal. There are seals for other universities around the building.

This is a stained glass of the State Seal.

This is at one end of the reading room. Almost has a church like feel to it.

Frankenmuth - The Covered Bridge

Frankenmuth is a town that's about 45 minutes north of Detroit, right off I-75. It was originally settled by German settlers and has a German feel to it. Two famous places there are Bronner's which sells many things Christmas related and Zehnder's which has all you can eat chicken.

A few years ago, a covered bridge was built there using traditional techniques. This is that bridge.


The bridge at night and in the winter.

It is in pretty idyllic surroundings (for the most part)



You can take horse rides through the town.

Lumberman's Monument - The Grounds

Near the momument they have some lumber related things.

This is a stack of logs.

This is a sleigh they would use to haul wood in the winter. Horses would be hitched to the front.


A log pile



This is a simulation of a log jam. The logs would be transported down the river and sometimes they would jam up. Then someone would have to go in to find the main logs that were causing it so the logs could come free again.

Lumberman's Monument - Winter

I visited the Lumberman's Monument yesterday. Never went up there in the dead of winter (although technically this is winter winding down) before so it was different. Part of the trip there was interesting as there was still some ice on the road. The road leading up to the monument was paved but the park wasn't shoveled. Fortunately, the snow was pretty solid so it was fairly easy to move around.

One of my favorite shots of the statue.

Notice the white on them.

Here you can see the white a little better. I think it's from the snow but I like how it drips down the statue.





You can see it clearer here.

Heading North on M-65

Yesterday, my mom and went up to Lumberman's Monument. I got a new GPS and wanted to check it out against the geodetic disk from the Forest Service there. It was almost dead on which is cool. The Lumberman's Monument looked pretty cool from the snow that was on it. I will post pictures of that later.



We headed out north from the park and eventually went to M-65 (Michigan Highway 65) which goes from just west of Standish, Michigan and ends up in Alpena. It is a fairly beautiful highway.



The Michigan State highway signs are a diamond shape on a black background. They used to be just a white diamond. I think they look cooler with the black around them.

This is called the Loud dam. It actually generates electricity when the water is running. There are quite a few dams in the vicinity of Lumberman's monument. With the push for more sustainable energy, I could see a few more dams being built.

This is the old M-65 bridge. The GPS didn't even recognize that it wasn't the bridge anymore, so as I was going over the proper bridge, it had me off course.

A view of the highway itself. Most of it looks like this. It was pretty cool as it was approaching sunset.


A white pine stand. The trees have come back to Michigan, but still not as many as there used to be.