Grand Haven 05, photo by jbatts.
jbatts says that on a whim she drove out Grand Haven and captured these photos from sunset at Grand Haven State Park (slideshow) on a January evening with 25+ mph winds and single-digit windchills.
It’s one of the photos in the new group she started on Flickr for Photographers of West Michigan. Speaking of the photographers of West Michigan, what do you want to bet that you can find the photo from the guy in the red jacket on Flickr too?
Newaygo Mill, photo by evanfarinosi.
Evan started the Newaygo County group on Flickr and he’d love it if you’d share your photos on the area there.
The City of Newaygo’s history page says:
The City of Newaygo is the oldest community in Newaygo County. The Penoyer and Brooks families were among the first settlers to Newaygo. They founded Newaygo’s first saw mill known as the “Big Red Mill” … The proximity of the Muskegon River was the driving force of Newaygo’s early economy, with mills, lumbering, and recreation developing near by.
I also found a cool gallery of historical photos of logging in Newaygo County in the Newaygo County Historical Archives.
Since I don’t know when we’ll pass this way again, I should say that Wikipedia’s entry on Newaygo says that the population was 1,670 at the 2000 census. I also added Newaygo, MI to the Absolute Michigan map of Michigan.
St. Joseph River Valley, photo by mojophiltre.
Mojophiltre took this photo of the St. Joseph River, just above the Buchanan Hydro-Electric Dam. He has a view of the water going over the Buchanan Dam that you’ll want to check out too.
As usual, Wikipedia has an entry on the St. Joseph River – I like to include these so that people who are passionate and knowledgeable can add to the phenomenal resource that Wikipedia offers. The St. Joseph River Watershed site (which has some cool maps of the watershed but some rather annoying Java) says:
The St. Joseph River Watershed is located in the southwest portion of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and northwestern portion of Indiana. It spans the Michigan-Indiana border and empties into Lake Michigan at St. Joseph, Michigan. The watershed drains 4,685 square miles from 15 counties (Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Hillsdale, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph and Van Buren in Michigan and De Kalb, Elkhart, Kosciusko, Lagrange, Noble, St. Joseph and Steuben in Indiana). The watershed includes 3,742 river miles…
The Friends of the St. Joseph River has a nifty historical photo of the Buchanan Dam and a great article about the history of the names of the St. Joseph River by Bob Owens & Scott Null. The river was important to native peoples – all the way from the enigmatic Hopewell Mound Builders who made their home all along the Saint Joseph River valley to the Fox & Sauk who moved in as mercenaries for the English. This very interesting page lists various names for the river and I think it’s fascinating how one river can provide such a wealth of insight into Michigan’s history:
The authors advocate for naming the river the Sagwa. I don’t know about that, but I do know that time seems to mysteriously disappear when I run into cool Michigan history like this!
More from the Michigan Fall Wallpaper series
The Mean Streets, photo by Brian.H.
Brian is a member of the Allegan Camera Club.
Wikipedia’s entry for Allegan says that Allegan has a population around 5,000 and is the county seat of Allegan County. It was apparently also named by Michigan historian Henry Rowe Schoolcraft in 1837 to sound like a Native American word.
Neither Wikipedia or the City of Allegan have much to say about the meanness of Allegan’s streets.
maplepath, photo by Aunt Owwee
Our next fall color tour from Travel Michigan, Lansing – Grand Ledge – Hastings – Battle Creek – Eaton Rapids, starts where the above photo was taken: at the Fenner Nature Center in Lansing (once known as the Fenner Arboretum). The park is named after biologist Carl G. Fenner and has 130 acres with 4 miles of trails winding through maple groves, pine forests, swamp forests, old fields and 3 different ponds. This weekend (Oct 20 & 21) they’re having an Apple Butter Festival. Aunt Owwee (Shirl) has a cool four seasons view from here and lot more great shots of autumn in Michigan.
If you’ve got the nature center bug, you can stop at the Woldumar Nature Center, located along the Grand River not far southwest of Lansing. From there, head out M-43 to Grand Ledge. Fitzgerald Park aka “The Ledges” are absolutely gorgeous in the fall, as evidenced by this photo from Rein Nomm of Fall at the Ledges that appeared last year on Michigan in Pictures. Not convinced? Search fall at Grand Ledge on Flickr. Last weekend, the city of Grand Ledge held their annual Color Cruise, but there’s still plenty of color to be found.
Then it’s on to Hastings and Historic Charlton Park, a re-creation of a 19th century town. The structures are open only Memorial Day to Labor Day but you can certainly enjoy strolling along the river. For a little more exercise, jump on the non-motorized vehicle only Paul Henry – Thornapple Trail (see photos of the trail on Flickr). When complete, the trail will be a 42-mile route from Grand Rapids to Vermontville. The photo to the right of the Thornapple River was taken by hansendm.
The it’s on to Gull Lake and the W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary. The sanctuary is one of the North America’s pioneer wildlife conservation centers and offers a chance to see birds in the wild, bird displays and birds of prey enclosures featuring rare and common raptors including a bald eagle, red-tailed hawks and eastern screech owl.
Travel Michigan suggests a possible detour to the Fort Custer Recreation Area, located between Battle Creek and Kalamazoo. It features three lakes, the Kalamazoo River and an excellent trail system that includes 16 miles of mountain bike trails. The 3000+ acre area was farmland that was acquired by the federal government to establish Camp Custer, an induction and military training center for the US Army during WWII.
If it’s raining or all this outdoor stuff doesn’t sound fun, consider stopping at the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners which features almost 200 vehicles spanning over 100 years of automotive heritage from a 1899 Locomobile to the muscle cars of the 60s and 70s.
Continuing south, we come to the city of Battle Creek where recommended stops include the Sojourner Truth Monument (check out this set of photos of the Monument), Binder Park Zoo, the Leila Arboretum and Children’s Garden and the Battle Creek Linear Park. The park is a walkable, bikeable and billed as “the world’s largest classroom,” featuring signs that tell about plant, animal, cultural and historical points-of-interest along the park.
If you’re hungry as you head out on Old 27, consider Cornwell’s Turkey House aka Turkeyville USA. A bit further south is the town of Marshall. In addition to being a shopping mecca, Marshall’s downtown is designated as a National Historic Landmark District and features a wealth of historic attractions including the American Museum of Magic.
The photo to the right is of the Kalamazoo river from the Nature Center bridge by cathie and it’s just one of the places you can stop as you ease on down the road back to Lansing through the towns of Albion, Springport & Eaton Rapids. They recommend a stop at The English Inn of Eaton Rapids for dinner. Having eaten there before, I can only say “got room for another?”
Just so it’s clear, these fall color tour entries are produced by Absolute Michigan & Michigan in Pictures using the great information compiled in Travel Michigan’s Fall Color Tours as a starting point. We’re trying to add to what they’ve put together – not rip them off! As always, if you have links to information or photos that we missed, comments or reports, post them in the comments below!
Don’t miss our Michigan Fall Wallpaper series and see more of Travel Michigan’s Fall Color Tours.
This vineyard in Antwerp, Michigan is part of a nice set of photos called A Perfect Day in Michigan (slideshow). The vineyard is just one of a rapidly growing number of Michigan vineyards that will be harvested in the days and weeks to come.
Harvest time brings a host of wine and harvest events including the Leelanau Harvest Stompede (Sep 22/23), Detroit Uncorked (Sep 28), New Buffalo Harvest Wine & Music Festival (Oct 6), The Big Grape Tour on the SE Michigan Pioneer Wine Trail (Nov 10), Holiday Cheer on the Lake Michigan Shore Wine Trail (Nov 10/11), Toast the Season on the Leelanau Wine Trail (Nov 10/11 & 17/18) and the Mac and Cheese Bake-off on the Old Mission Wine Trail (Nov 24).
There’s a bunch more events at individual wineries along with all kinds of Michigan wine and winery information available at Michiganwines.com.
The Zipper, photo by Hooks Pix.
Don took this photo at the 2007 Allegan County Fair.
Check it out bigger, on black.
cornhole sunset, photo by bingo_todd
Winner of this month’s most interesting title…
The Cornhole Game Association says:
There are many people who have varying views of how to play cornhole or what the actual name is, cornhole, bean bag game, softshoes, etc. We have discovered the most popular way to play and have standardized the rules and dimensions so people from all over the country can play the same way.
Their forum looks at the conflicting accounts of the origins and evolution of the game. A Cincinnati native who recently moved to michigan noted …the trend is getting hot up here. They are all calling it ” Polish Horseshoes”. I just laugh and tell them that we call it Cornhole. Oh well they will get it soon enough.
The Cincinatti Enquirer says that Cincinnatian Ryan Whetstone started the Cornhole Game Association, so you Polish horseshoers may be in the wrong.
green apple, photo by Vaughan.
Michigan in Pictures is graciously hosted by WordPress.com. They are a great company who make a great piece of software and if you are looking for a place to host your blog, I strongly urge you to check them out!
Anyway, this morning I decided to check out the WordPress.com photography page and right there at the top, featured out of hundreds of thousands of possible blogs was a familiar face – Vaughn Nelson, a contributing photographer to Absolute Michigan pool.
So check out Vaughn’s photo blog and say hello – I think you’ll like his look at the everyday of southwest Michigan.
Thanksgiving Sunset, photo by wizardkitten.
It’s been 2 weeks since the last Michigan shoreline tour stop at Holland (feels like 2 weeks since I last got on the Michigan shoreline myself!).
While I didn’t find much about the history of Kirk Park at the page Google thinks is best, I did stumble onto this review of the Dune Ridge Trail at Kirk Park from Jim DuFresne’s Best Hikes with Children in Michigan Guide Book (there’s 80 hikes on that page – check it out):
There is a tendency at Kirk Park for children to head straight to the beach. They jump out of the car and hightail it down a paved path to Lake Michigan where they jump into the surf, roll in the sand, or get scorched by the sun. Then their parents take them home, usually waterlogged, sunburnt, and with half a dune in their bathing suits. Should have taken them hiking. At 66 acres and with 2000 feet of lakefront, this Ottawa County park is not large. In fact, it’s basically one dune. But it’s a large dune, and major renovations in the mid-1990s resulted in an intriguing 2-mile trail system over and around this towering hill of sand. The heart of the system is Dune Ridge Trail, a mile-long loop that climbs the hill and then circles the top to reward hikers with excellent views of Lake Michigan.
Cathleen says she likes this park and goes there quite a lot. After seeing her pictures and those from Thomas, Craig (who apparently heeded that “take the trails” advice), Katie, Holly and others, I can see why.
Here’s a Flickr map and also the entry for Kirk Park on our Absolute Michigan map of Michigan.
Michigan in Pictures 
