Winter

Explored! #86 on Monday, July 23, 2007. Thanks! Perhaps the prettiest place I know: Sleeping Bear Bay, on Lake Michigan, from Glen Haven, Michigan. The big dune is Sleeping Bear; the island is South Manitou.

Looking towards the Manitou Islands from the Glen Haven Cannery, Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. Sleeping Bear Bay--Lake Michigan--in the background.

Another of Martin Sernstinger's delightful mid-1950s photographs of the equipment used by the Kalamazoo Fire Department. This is a wonderful photograph of what was already an old truck, though the print was a bit battered. Not sure where it was taken, but it probably goes with the pumper-in-action photo I posted a few weeks back. Approximately 1955; Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Fishtown in Winter..... Leland, Michigan.

Fishtown in Winter.... This ship is the usual transport to the Manitou Islands. She's named after the the bear in the local Legend of the Sleeping Bear . Leland, Michigan.

Fishtown in Winter.... Last in this set. I promised Larry a picture of the Cheese Shop. (I've got another (better) picture of this shop in my scan queue. Early 90s, I think. In September. No snow. Tourists.)

We've reached the top of the Dune Climb at Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, and are looking at the less strenuous climb above it. Better large!

At Lifesaving Station Sleeping Bear Point, Glen Haven, Michigan. Now part of the National Lakeshore.

In its prime--a century or so ago--Glen Haven, Michigan, was more a commercial convenience than a true village; it was originally a logging port, then a location for D.H. Day's cherry cannery. There was a hotel, a store, a handful of homes, an enormous dock, and the wonderful beach I've shown once or twice before. By the time I first encountered the place in the early 1960s, its main claims to fame were that it terminated Michigan's shortest state highway , and that it hosted the Sleeping Bear Dune Ride concession. Both are gone. There are still houses along the beach, but they seem more a part of the lakeshore than part of the village.

KFD Engine 5 was different . The paint job was your first clue; this truck was painted white, with red trim. That word, RESCUE, on the door was another clue. 5 was a traditional pumper in most ways, but it was equipped to handle auto accidents and other unusual situations; this included carrying the sorts of paramedic supplies which modern fire departments put into ambulances. Of course, in the '50s there were no true paramedics on the Kalamazoo Fire Department. This is my favorite of Dad's Martin Sernstinger photographs. It shows engine 5 in some sort of training exercise, pumping water out of a pond--and right back into the pond. Marty obviously enlisted the department's hook and ladder to make a high perch. The snow's a neat touch, too. Eventually you're going to need to fight a fire in a blizzard....

Explored! #260 on Friday, September 21, 2007. Thanks! At the Sleeping Bear Lifesaving Station. The tracks made it simpler to get the boats from the boathouse to the water. That's Joan, of course. Another picture from our trip north in late February.

It's been so hot this week I thought I'd recall our February excursion to Sleeping Bear.

This old-looking, vignetted, and decidedly grainy photograph was shot last February from Strange School , near Grand Ledge, Michigan.

Another reason to love Portland, Michigan. Explored! #493 on Friday, August 17, 2007. Thanks! (No longer in the top 500.)

Sleeping Bear Point Lifesaving Station-- now a museum . In fact, long a museum. Lake Michigan (Sleeping Bear Bay) in the background.

Okemos, Michigan; Christmas Day, 2002. This back yard view belongs to Joan's brother Paul and his wife, Lisa. No snow, here, today.

Hickory Corners, Michigan

Actually, I had the day off, but stopped briefly at the office to collect Joan's signature. The building across the pond is cleverly called the General Office Building (it's commonly abbreviated G.O.B.) Since there are a dozen or so buildings in the State Secondary Complex, most of which mainly house offices, that title's, well, strange. So it goes.