Mackinac Bridge Tower, photo by A. Runyon.
Amanda assures us that she wasn’t driving.
Head over to Absolute Michigan for a cool look inside the Mackinac Bridge towers and click the button below for lots more Mackinac Bridge info.
Michigan Shoreline Tour: Van Buren State Park
Van Buren State Park, photo by Paladin27.
A little over a year ago, I blogged another photo from Paladin27’s Flying to South Haven set.
It might be cheating to go to the well twice, but it’s hard to find a way to convey the awesome scope of Michigan’s shoreline dunes without getting above them (and moving along them). Be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of his video on YouTube of the flight.
The official page on Van Buren State Park (which makes the park look like it recently escaped from prison) says:
Van Buren State Park offers approximately 400 acres of land located along the Lake Michigan shoreline in northern Van Buren County. The focal points of the park are its high dune formations and one mile of sandy beach. Van Buren became a state park in May of 1965 when the original 167-acre plot was purchased from the Harry LaBar Drake family. Since then two other land purchases have been made to make up the current park.
The Wikipedia entry for Van Buren State Park needs some help as well. Anyone have some knowledge about the park and a little time?
The park has camping on over 200 sites, hiking on miles of trails and great sandy beaches. Here’s a Flickr photo map and also the Google Map for Van Buren State Park (looks like they caught a boat on the satellite flyover!)
Michigan Shoreline Tour: Grand Mere State Park (and a flying dog)
My dog can fly, photo by J. Star.
J Star writes:
The boy, the dog and I went to Lake Michigan yesterday, planning to stay until tonight. The forecast called for clear skies and eighty degrees for today…last night at about midnight the storms started. By morning, the thunder was deafening, the tent was afloat in three inches of water, and hail was pounding down everywhere. Needless to say, we packed it in early and headed home.
We did have fun on the beach for about two hours yesterday. Steve seems to think it was worth the drive. You can tell by the sand being joyously flung everywhere, and by the huge gob of it he left stuck to my polarizer.
The DNR page on Grand Mere State Park near Stevensville says that the 985 acre park features magnificent sand dunes, deep blowouts, one mile of Lake Michigan shoreline and three inland lakes behind the dunes in the undeveloped natural area. Both the DNR page and Wikipedia entry for Grand Mere State Park are remarkably scant on information, leading me to believe that with a 1/2 mile hike to the beach, it’s a pretty good place to avoid the crowds. Here’s a Google map to Grand Mere State Park.
Been there? Done that? Tell us or show us what it was like in the comments!
Michigan Shoreline Tour: Warren Dunes State Park
Warren Dunes State Park, photo by mizjellybean
Heading up the shoreline from New Buffalo, we come to the Warren Dunes State Park. I think that the first thing you need to do is check out this slideshow of the Warren Dunes. Go ahead, we’ll wait.
Wikipedia’s entry for Warren Dunes State Park is a 1,952 acre state park, located along the shore of Lake Michigan in Berrien County, Michigan (near Sawyer). The park’s dunes include Mt. Fuller, Pikes Peak, Mt. Edwards and (the tallest) Tower Hill which rises 250′ above Lake Michigan. Warren Dunes was designated as a state park in 1930 and draws around one million visitors annually. The page on the village of Sawyer from the Harbor Country Chamber of Commerce adds that although most in the area saw the land as worthless, businessman Edward K. Warren had a vision to preserve them and bought the land at the turn of the century.
Speaking of Wikipedia – something we seem to do fairly often – they have a massive page of map data and hacks for Warren Dunes including a Flickr map of photos from the Warren Dunes area and the Google map to Warren Dunes State Park.
I should add that the DNR page for Warren Dunes State Park notes that due to an infestation of the Emerald Ash Borer beetle, over 4,000 ash trees have been removed from the modern campground unit, dramatically changing the appearance of that campground.
New Buffalo, Michigan
Sunset over Lake Michigan, photo by briethe.
There’s not much doubt that as we head up Michigan’s west coast in our shoreline tour, we’ll see a lot of breakwalls and sunsets.
The New Buffalo Township’s excellent history tells us (among other things):
The city of New Buffalo came into being because of a violent October storm in 1834, when Captain Wessel D. Whittaker grounded his schooner Post Boy in the mouth of a small stream called State Creek near the present village of Grand Beach. The ship was destroyed, but Captain and crew survived the disaster and walked to Michigan City, where there were taverns that could provide food and shelter. There Whittaker hired a rig and headed north for St. Joseph to report the ship’s loss to its underwriters. On his way up the coast, he was struck by advantages and beauty of the spot where the Galien River passed through Lake Potawatomi into Lake Michigan. Lake Potowatomi, since drained by the sawmills, was, by varying accounts, two miles long, a half mile wide and up to ninety feet deep or four miles long by a mile wide and fourteen feet deep. It is now just “a lazy bend in the river.”
In addition to all kinds of visitor and business information, The New Buffalo Business Administration has a nice timeline of the history of New Buffalo and a cool old photos of the C&O Railroad Roundhouse that I would very much like to see larger. Maybe it can be found at the New Buffalo Railroad Museum. I also learned at NewBuffalo.com that the nation’s first Highway Travel Information center opened on May 4, 1935, on US-12 at New Buffalo. New Buffalo’s Wikipedia entry is on the lame side, and I would encourage any enterprising New Buffaloeans to spruce it up a little.
You can View a map of photos from New Buffalo and nearby, and explore more of our Michigan Shoreline tour pictures.
Michigan (Shoreline) in Pictures
You can see Chicago from 42 miles away! by TRVentura
This summer, Absolute Michigan will be taking a tour of Michigan’s shoreline, looking at the heritage and attractions of the communities along Michigan’s Great Lakes shoreline.
Michigan in Pictures will be going along, trying to point out some of the beauty along the way.
We’d really like it if you’d help us by telling us what not to miss. If we do miss something – and with 3000+ miles of coastline, that’s pretty likely – then please feel welcome to post a comment or a link at the place where we missed it.
And if you want to climb in the car (or on the bike or in the kayak) and join the tour and let us know what you found, well that would be very cool too.
The above photo was taken at the beach in Michiana, Michigan (and Yahoo/Flickr geotagged photo map). I’m always a little surprised to find that you can’t see the state line from space.
Kite Photography at Little Sable Point Lighthouse
we finally got our lighthouse!, photo by weaving major & tractor dan.
weaving major & tractor dan write that they’ve long admired everyone else’s lighthouse-from-a-kite shots, and now finally have a few of their own. They say if you’re interested, you can learn more about Kite Aerial Photography (KAP) right here. They have also added location information so you can view this photo on a map!
Terry Pepper’s Seeing the Light has a page on Little Sable Point Light that begins:
In the early 1800’s western Michigan consisted of seemingly endless forests, and with the skyrocketing growth of Chicago and Milwaukee, it was inevitable that there would be those who would come to the area to take advantage of the areas bounty. In the 1850’s, Charles Mears and Reverend William Ferry were both operating sawmills in the area around Little Sable Point. While almost all of the pine forests had been harvested by the 1880’s, there were still plenty of hemlock and hardwoods remaining.
In the late 1860’s Summers Fox, a local merchant supplying the lumber trade began lobbying the Lighthouse Board for the construction of a coastal lighthouse at what was then known as Petite Pointe Au Sable. With the grounding of the schooner “Pride” on Little Sable Point in 1871, cries for the construction of a lighthouse swelled…
The light was built activated in 1874. At 107′ tall, it is the tallest lighthouse on Lake Michigan.
Earth Day from high above Michigan
36,000 feet over Michigan, photo by bksecretphoto.
Landon Michaelson writes: One of my favorite shots out the airline window. I liked the clear day, the curvature of the earth, the black sky and the cloud layers beneath. Pocket digital several years ago (still easier to use than my DSLR in-flight) and of course I always request a window seat.
Landon is an East Wenatchee, WA based photographer whose work can be found by clicking the photo above or visiting Best Kept Secret Photography.
Last night I attended the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council’s annual celebration of work on the behalf of the environment in our region. The even is timed as a lead-in to Earth Day and featured a ton of talking and pictures showcasing Michigan’s incredible natural bounty. Facts like “Michigan is the second most agriculturally diverse state in the country.”, the very funny and very compelling wombat video (highly recommended) and all the pictures showing land the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy has preserved for enjoyment and habitat or is helping to remain in farming and forestry forever.
The GTRLC’s Glen Chown delivered the keynote. One of his themes was that not only has the preservation and promotion of our natural and cultural heritage has proven to be good business in northwest lower Michigan, it also likely holds part of the answer to Michigan’s need for a new economic engine. Glen also related the observations of Michigan astronaut Jerry Linenger of Michigan from much higher window seat. Linengar has logged more hours in space than almost anyone and had ample time to marvel at the beauty of Michigan’s spectacular coastline, green forests and rich farms.
I imagine that he also felt how deep and cold the black is that lies just miles away from the only planet we have.
Have a very happy Earth Day, Michigan. I hope you get a chance to hike a Michigan trail, walk a Michigan beach and otherwise enjoy this magical place.
Kayak on the Pine River Channel
Kayaking through the Channel, photo by smiles7.
The lighthouse is the Charlevoix South Pier Light, and it marks the mouth of the Pine River channel that extends from Lake Charlevoix to Lake Michigan. Terry Pepper’s Seeing the Light explains:
The Pine River Channel is believed to be unique in the entire world inasmuch as it has a two-way current. After severe westerly windstorms, waters pushed high into Lake Charlevoix will swiftly flow back out to meet other inbound currents. Small whirlpools and eddies at the harbor mouth are not uncommon, and whitecaps can frequently be observed within the channel on the calmest days.
You can get a lot more information about the history of Charlevoix’s Pier Lights from Terry Pepper and see historical photos including a cool postcard of the Charlevoix North Pier Light in 1909. If you want to visit Charlevoix, the Charlevoix Area Convention and Visitors Bureau is a good place to start.
Lake Michigan Shore
Lake Michigan Shore, photo by Anthony Bergman.
About 10 miles south of Grand Haven … highly recommended as wallpaper for the cabin feverish.
Michigan in Pictures 