Needing Nature

Just when you think you've found the most beautiful, perfect place on the planet, the wind changed. LITERALLY. The shift in the wind blew swarms of flies from the endless dense forests to the beach and oddly anything white or light colored. At this bottom picture, my daughter was saying, "These flies are putting tiny holes in my skin!" Yes, they were biting flies. They swarmed anything that was light colored......like our paradise beach, our dog, our skin.....anything and everything. Got up the next day: More flies. Next day: More flies. We'd wake up and look out on the screen tent, which was WHITE making it a huge fly magnet, and we'd have our own fly forecast. When it was covered at 7 a.m., we knew we were going to have to drive inland for the day and find something else to do. The campground host informed us that he had seen the entire campground emptied as everyone cleared out because of the FLIES. We've camped for years and have experienced a...

I thought I'd post some more pictures from the eastern side of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Later I'll post shots from the more popular western side which is beautiful in a different way. The top picture is of Grand Sable Dunes and the others are taken from our campground, which was I think $15 a night. It always amazes me that the most inexpensive campgrounds are the most beautiful. The name of this campground is Twelve Mile Beach, and the beach really does seem endless. You can walk forever and not see a soul. If you want to get away, and just experience nature, and simply BREATHE, this is the place. There's something about being by water that is so relaxing. Lake Superior is breathtaking. I would bring books and notebooks to the beach behind our campsite, planning to read and write but all I ended up doing was soaking in my surroundings. Cell phone coverage: Nonexistent!! I'd walk up a hill and would get a little, but we pretty much had to drive to Gr...

This is one of the most beautiful places I've been to. What a surprise to find out we didn't have to travel 1000 miles to find a secluded, quiet, breathtaking place. This was taken from our campsite at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, right on Lake Superior.