Wednesday, June 4, 2014

More training, more touring!

We’ve been having some more training this week, and today’s training involved yet another tour of the park! This one was on a small bus, so the whole group of ten people fit in with no problems.
I joke about yet another tour, but we did see some places the four of us didn’t get to on our first drive through. We did all the main stops, including Miner’s Castle. It looked a little different - no ice! All the icebergs had gotten blown back north – whatever hadn’t melted, that is. I’ve no doubt some of it is still out there.

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The cliffs of Grand Island aren’t part of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, but it’s the same formation.

With the ice gone, it was still fairly calm – enough that there was a clear boundary where the brown, tannin-stained water from Miner’s Creek, flowing into the lake just a short distance away, met the clear, pure green of Lake Superior.

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And there was something down there! This isn’t the best picture, because it is zoomed in all the way, but they are unmistakeably a pair of common loons. They kept taking turns diving down, then popping up somewhere else.

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We stopped at the Twelve Mile Beach picnic area for lunch. I noticed some weird tree fungi and some pretty flowers!

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I'm not sure what this one is, but it looks like it may be in the legume family. (I looked it up - it's in the milkweed family, and its common name is Bird-on-the-wing. Is that not lovely? That is lovely!)

We went to the Log Slide overlook and I was amazed at the view of the dunes. I had forgotten how foggy it was the first time we stopped there, and how little we actually saw!

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Doesn't that look like Neverland?!

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That dot in the distance is the Au Sable Light Station. It's on my list of things to see - it's a 1 1/2 mile walk from the Hurricane River area.

Our last stop was at a random side road where we walked into the woods to where Ron, our guide, knew there might be double trilliums blooming!

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It’s a rare mutation. People have gotten in trouble for digging them up to sell to private collectors, so I cannot reveal exactly where it was. Especially since I have no idea where it was.

After we got back I took another stroll out on the beach. I need to do that more often.

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