Include Carp River Falls in Your Waterfall Weekend

Posted on by farlane

Carp River, photo by Blondieyooper

How about we all pretend that Mother Nature is not dumping a bunch of wind & winter on us and instead plan a UP adventure??

Only in Your State shared a waterfall weekend itinerary for the Upper Peninsula that includes a super cool 3D Google Earth tour. The waterfalls include Tahquamenon Falls, Sable Falls & Miners Falls in the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Black River Falls & Laughing Whitefish Falls.

This waterfall is Carp River Falls about which Go Waterfalling says:

The Carp River makes a noisy, tumultuous journey through Marquette county on its way to Lake Superior. The final 5 miles of the river from Carp Lake to Lake Superior drops over 600 feet and there are long stretches of rapids, white water, and many small falls. At Carp River Falls the river drops over 30 feet while taking a sharp curve.

Reaching this waterfall is not easy, and getting a good view of it requires a precarious climb into and out of the gorge. From Morgan Falls you can cross Morgan Creek above the falls (there is a crude bridge) and follow a rough trail upstream along the banks of the Carp River for about 1/2 mile. You will see and hear lots of white water. The trail goes high above the river when you reach the falls, and there are no good views from the rim, so if you really want to see it, you need to climb down, and then back up.

There are many rapids and smaller falls both above and below the main falls. You could spend a lot of time here trying to see all of them.

Blondieyooper took this photo back in May of 2009, and you can see her daughter to the left. View the photo on Flickr and see more in her very seasonally appropriate Green slideshow.

Automotive Old Guard Leading the Race to the Future

Posted on by farlane

Autonomous Fusion Hybrid research vehicle in Dearborn, courtesy Ford Motor Co

While Uber, Tesla & Google are getting most of the ink, WIRED magazine’s article Detroit Is Stomping Silicon Valley in the Self-Driving Car Race says:

IF YOU’RE BETTING on Silicon Valley stars like Google, Tesla, and Uber to free you from your horrorshow commute with autonomous driving technology, don’t. That’s the key takeaway from a new report that finds Ford—yes, the Detroit-based, 113-year-old giant—is winning the race to build the self-driving car, with General Motors running a close second. Renault-Nissan, Daimler, and Volkswagen round out the top five. Meanwhile, Waymo—aka Google’s driverless car effort—sits in sixth place, with Tesla in twelfth. Uber languishes in sixteenth, behind Honda and barely ahead of startup Nutonomy and China’s Baidu.

That may sound all kinds of wrong to anyone who has seen Uber, Waymo, and Tesla flaunt their tech, and regards Detroit’s old guard as ill-prepared for the robotic future. But it’s the state of the race according to Navigant Research, whose newly released “leaderboard” report ranks these players not just on their ability to make a car drive itself, but on their ability to bring that car to the mass market.

Ford and GM both score in the low to mid 80s on the technology front; it’s their old-school skills that float them to first and second place. They’ve each spent more than a century developing, testing, producing, marketing, distributing, and selling cars. Plus, each has made strategic moves to bolster weak points. Ford just dumped a billion dollars into an artificial intelligence outfit. It acquired ride-sharing service Chariot and invested in Velodyne, a company producing lidar, the laser scanning tech many argue is necessary for self-driving cars. GM scooped up self-driving expertise via a startup called Cruise, and partnered with Lyft to put the eventual result on the road.

Lots more in a great article from WIRED!

View the photo of an autonomous Ford Fusion hybrid bigger on Ford’s website.

More cars & autos on Michigan in Pictures.

Eight Hooter, Rain Owl, Wood Owl, Striped Owl, Barred Owl

Posted on by farlane

Barred Owl, photo by Mark Miller

Those cool names are from the Wikipedia for the Barred Owl (Strix varia). The All About Birds page on Bard Owls says in part:

The Barred Owl’s hooting call, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you-all?” (see video below) is a classic sound of old forests and treed swamps. But this attractive owl, with soulful brown eyes and brown-and-white-striped plumage, can also pass completely unnoticed as it flies noiselessly through the dense canopy or snoozes on a tree limb. Originally a bird of the east, during the twentieth century it spread through the Pacific Northwest and southward into California.

Barred Owls live year-round in mixed forests of large trees, often near water. They tend to occur in large, unfragmented blocks of mature forest, possibly because old woodlands support a higher diversity of prey and are more likely to have large cavities suitable for nesting. Their preferred habitats range from swamps to streamsides to uplands, and may contain hemlock, maple, oak, hickory, beech, aspen, white spruce, quaking aspen, balsam poplar, Douglas-fir, lodgepole pine, or western larch.

Barred Owls don’t migrate, and they don’t even move around very much. Of 158 birds that were banded and then found later, none had moved farther than 6 miles away. (In Michigan, the average range is about a mile)

 
View Mark’s photo bigger and see more in his In My Backyard slideshow.

More owls on Michigan in Pictures.

Detroit Tigers Opening Day & 2017 Home Opener

Posted on by farlane

4 days to opening day, photo by Kevin Povenz

Justin Verlander will take the mound today at 4:10 PM for the Detroit Tigers as the face the Chicago White Sox for their 116th Opening Day. The first game the Tigers played as a Major League team was on April 25, 1901 against the Milwaukee Brewers. Roscoe Miller started the first-ever Tigers Opening Day, a game the Tigers won 14–13.

The Baseball Almanac lists the results of all Tigers’ opening day games. They are 65-50 on opening days with an 11-8 record against the White Sox.

The Tigers’ home opener – fortuitously for the title of today’s photo – is Friday at 1:10 PM against the Boston Red Sox – play ball!

Kevin posted this back in April of 2014. View the photo bigger and see more in his Fun/Interesting slideshow.

More Detroit Tigers on Michigan in Pictures.

Fog rolling over the Narrows

Posted on by farlane

Fog rolling in over the Narrows, photo by Unique View Photography

Here’s a look at North & South Lake Leelanau with “The Narrows” in between. I live just off the right edge of this picture and thought it was pretty cool how the spring fog completely covered Lake Michigan in this picture, creating a lake of fog!

See the photo bigger on Facebook and follow Elijah on Facebook.

More aerial photos on Michigan in Pictures.

#TBT: Shining in Cheyboygan with the Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw

Posted on by farlane

USCG Mackinaw, Cheybogan

Shining in Cheyboygan, photo by Bill Johnson

Here’s a neat “Throwback Thursday” (TBT), a photo of the United States Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw on May 25, 1993 when she was still in service. Bill writes:

This is the original Coast Guard Cutter Mackinaw, WAGB 83, wearing its silvery whitish colors, in its home port of Cheboygan, MI. This beauty was built in 1944 to aid the war effort by keeping the Great Lakes open during the winter. The cutter was intentionally built too wide to get through the Saint Lawrence Seaway in order to keep her in the Great Lakes. She was moved to Mackinaw in June of 2006, decommissioned, and turned into a museum at the Chief Wawatam docks. Today, she wears the red hull that she was retired in.

You can see the current look of the Icebreaker Mackinaw and get information about visiting on the Icebreaker Mackinaw Maritime Museum website.

View Bill’s photo background big and see more in his Boats, Ships, and Stuff That Floats slideshow.

More Throwback Thursdays on Michigan in Pictures.

Say you will

Posted on by farlane

Say you will, photo by Brian Wolfe

Brian took this back in April of 2009 and shared some thoughts that I think all photographers (and people) would do well to consider:

This weekend I resolved to wake up for the dawn. With the days growing longer and the sun rising earlier, it will only get more difficult the longer I put it off. I was hoping for some brilliant cloud pattern to reflect amazing colors but like what happens so often, it was just (what I like to call) bland. This kind of killed my energy and I felt like I would rather have slept-in. Instead of turning for home, I expanded my perception of my surroundings, opened my eyes, and came up with some great stuff (I think so anyway).

View the photo background bigilicious, see more in Brian’s The Top Thirty slideshow, and definitely follow Brian on Instagram!

More Spring Wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures.

Meanwhile, in the Frozen North

Posted on by farlane

Fellow Sun Gazer, photo by Footsore Fotography

While lots of people are looking at their gardens and thinking about April showers & May flowers, here’s a reminder from Sunday in Grand Marais that for some in Michigan, winter is still very much in play!

View the photo bigger on Facebook and follow Gary at Footsore Fotography on Facebook for lots more from Grand Marais and the surrounding area.

Ode to Spring … and Michigan Spring Wallpaper!

Posted on by farlane

Ode to Spring, photo by Sue Fraser

Suddenly there’s no more snowing,
Balmy breezes blithely blowing,
Lilacs bloom, the lawn needs mowing–
Oh, what glee!
-Robert G. Shubinski (full poem)

Spring isn’t quite this far advanced, but if you want to add to the amount of spring in your life,take a walk through the spring wallpaper on Michigan in Pictures – lots of great pics in here!

You can see this photo background bigtacular and see lots more in Sue’s Fantastic Flowers slideshow.

Rare “Pure Award” for the Headlands Dark Sky Park

Posted on by farlane

Milky Way, photo by Joseph Snowaert

I’ve been an astronomy nut since I was a little kid, and I’m always happy when the importance of the night sky gets the recognition it deserves. That’s certainly the case as the Headlands Dark Sky Park has won Michigan’s most exclusive tourism award. Absolute Michigan explains:

Emmet County’s International Dark Sky Park at the Headlands won the distinguished recognition of the state’s premier Pure Michigan campaign at the annual Governor’s Conference on Tourism Tuesday when they won the Pure Award for 2017. The Pure Award, which has only been awarded twice in the 10 years of the Pure Michigan campaign, recognizes best practices in stewarding and preserving Michigan’s natural, cultural, and heritage-based resources.

“This award helps us further realize our goal of safeguarding the community’s natural and direct encounter with Northern Michigan’s unique and exceptional environment, both by day and by night,” said Headlands Program Director Mary Stewart Adams.

…The Headlands International Dark Sky Park is a 600-acre park on the Straits of Mackinac, two miles west of downtown Mackinaw City, at 15675 Headlands Road. The park is free and open to the public every day. While no camping is allowed, visitors are welcome to stay overnight to observe the dark sky overhead. The Headlands became the 6th International Dark Sky Park in the U.S. and the 9th in the world in May 2011, as designated by the International Dark Sky Association (www.darksky.org), and each month free programs are held for the public.

Read on for more.

Joseph took this photo back in May of 2014. View it background big and see more in his Writing Center slideshow.