The last couple days of my trip have been amazing, and I just seem to be constantly grinning from ear to ear. The weather’s been picture-perfect, as in not a clear blue sky in sight, which has made for some great photography, and regular contact with my super geek always does wonders for my mood. Life is grand.

After leaving Chicago I started working my way up the western coast of Michigan, and the wind was blowing like crazy. I don’t recall ever seeing waves like that on the lake when I lived there, and I certainly don’t remember anyone surfing, but there were a couple dozen surfers out at Grand Haven. They’d walk halfway out on the breakwater and then launch themselves out into the water off the pier, it was pretty interesting to watch. With the weather as wonderfully cloudy as it was, there wasn’t much chance of a pretty sunset, but I was rewarded for my two mile barefoot walk on the beach with the view at Big Sable Point. The sky almost looked as if it was boiling. Heading back to my car afterwards I realized it was much easier to walk on the hard sand right along the water, and rolled up my pants legs…not high enough though, as I was rather quickly soaked above the knees, my second drenching for the day after the occasional stray waves at the Grand Haven breakwater earlier that morning. To top things off, with a mile still to go, it started to rain. Hard. Oh what I’ll put up with for the perfect shot! The next morning I started off at the Manistee pierhead, which was blissfully quiet after the weekend crowds at the beaches the day before. I chatted with a fisherman there, and we discussed the rough water, and he told me about a fishing trip he and his son had recently taken out to an island off of Beaver Island. On the return trip, the day before his daughter’s wedding, they hit particularly rough water in a 16′ boat and thought they were going to die…he knew he was dead regardless, better to drown trying to get home than miss the wedding outright!

I spent the rest of the day in Traverse City, where we lived from when I was in sixth grade through my sophomore year in high school. I did get my driver’s license while we lived there, but I HATED to drive, and I’m quite sure my parents hated driving with me just as much, so I really never did have a good feel for the city…which I’ve now discovered isn’t much of a city and is infinitely smaller than I had thought. Probably a good thing, seeing as my method of navigation left a bit to be desired. I arrived into town, got my oil changed, and went in search of our old house, knowing only the name of the street we lived on. I saw a street sign for “Garfield” and it sounded familiar, but having lived in four different states since then, I couldn’t quite remember if it rang bells from when I lived in Traverse City, or somewhere else. I turned down it anyway, and discovered I was on the right track as things occasionally looked familiar and I did manage to find our old subdivision with little trouble. My sister was in town a year or two ago and had already reported that the field where we used to climb trees has been converted into housing, but I was still a little taken aback when I saw it. Some of the trees had been spared, and I was reminded of the day I lost my temper while playing badminton and beat Amber over the head with my racket. She went to tattle to my mom (our mom, sorry), and I took off running for the field and went to hide in one of the trees. I quickly discovered that I was not alone in the tree though. There was, in fact, a very large raccoon (maybe he’s one of Leroy’s cousins, Collin? haha) hiding in a hollow in the trunk, which promptly scared me into falling out of the tree. Oops. From our old house I headed across town (which really had seemed much further when I was younger) to the old insane asylum which is being converted into housing and shops. They’d finished one main building and were working on a couple others, but many were still nicely abandoned and I had a great time wandering around photographing the exteriors of the building.

From Traverse City I headed towards Michigan’s eastern shore where I shot the last of my Great Lakes lighthouses before starting to work my way south. I’m currently in Cincinnati, headed for New Orleans in a rather roundabout manner. I stopped in Dayton yesterday to check out what used to be the Southern Ohio Lunatic Asylum (later the Dayton State Hospital), which is now a retirement community. Not sure what that says they think of old folks? I drove around the grounds but the place looks more like a large hotel and hasn’t really retained any of the creepiness that’s normally associated with the Kirkbride facilities. Ahhh well. Tuscaloosa’s Bryce Hospital is on the agenda in a couple days, and it is thoroughly abandoned and should be much more to my liking. I must be going, there’s driving to be done…story of my life!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 12:05 pm.