The photo above is of the famous “Tree of Life” on Kalaloch Beach in Washington. I’ve noticed that I’m drawn to dead trees, gnarly trees, or weird root systems. I have quite a few photos on my phone of what I call “tree art”. I decided to dedicate a page to this type of Mother Nature’s art. Most of the time, I won’t remember the location, so I’ll just enjoy the art for art’s sake. Here goes:
I’ll update this page as I spot more tree art! Have a great day, and I hope you do or learn or see something NEW today!
Happy Monday! Last year, we were back east traveling and didn’t have the opportunity to see the fall colors in our own neck of the woods. Friends and family told us we were really missing out! So this year, we made it a point to take a drive up the canyon to do a little leaf-peeping. The leaves were beautiful! I love living where there are four distinct seasons. There’s always a NEW season, right around the corner.
I hope you have a great day and get to learn or do something NEW today!
In May, I enjoyed going through all the photos on my phone, picking out 26 and creating an A-Z-style compilation (HERE is the link to the previous post). So, I’m doing that again. Most of these things are extremely random. That’s why I want to do a post – to remember the randomness of them all! Here goes:
A is for Apostle Islands, Wisconsin (main photo above). There aren’t many places that we put on our “must return” list, but this is one place that is on the list! We didn’t get a chance to kayak through these cliffs and caves, and we think that would be awesome. So, we’re coming back…eventually!
B is for Bridge. This is the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan (and I’ll include the Fun Facts sheet about the bridge that I found in our campground’s laundry room). And, in case you didn’t know: you pronounce Mackinac and Mackinaw the same, whichever way it’s spelled. Mackinac is the French spelling, but both are pronounced MACK-in-awe.
C is for Commandments. I snapped this photo at the bottom of Horseshoe Falls, in Munising, Michigan.
D is for Dented by a Deer! Thanks to a deer, we now have new dents in our truck. Hubby temporarily “fixed” the part that was so bent we couldn’t open the door…with duct tape! That Dear Deer couldn’t just dent one panel of the truck…he had to dent the front panel, the driver’s side door, AND the driver’s side cab door. Ugh!
E is for Eagle. Yep, that’s an eagle. Really, truly! Clearly, I need a more powerful camera lens! :o)
F is for Fish Boil. We had heard that one of the “must” things to do in Door County, Wisconsin, was to go to a Fish Boil. So, of course, we did. When the cook throws kerosene on the fire, it’s not only for the show, but the fish oil and scum boils over, and the fish is ready to eat!
G is for Grandfather Clock…the largest in the world!
H is for Houses… birdhouses. When hunting for Dambo Trolls, if you see any birdhouses similar to these, that means you’re getting close!
I is for Island. There are a lot of little islands in Rainy Lake, in Voyageurs National Park. If any bit of land has a tree on it, it’s considered an island!
J is for Jack Pine Lumberjack Show. It was fun cheering for “our” lumberjack, Ian, and booing for the other team’s lumberjack (I can’t remember his name). :o)
K is for Kitchen…and trying my best to stay out of the kitchen during our various pickleball games!
L is for, of course, Lenore! My hubby saw this street sign near Astoria, Oregon, and on the way back from wherever we were going, we pulled over to get a shot. Cuz, why not?!? :o)
M is for Monarch…as in butterflies! So cute. I snapped these little guys at the Green Bay Botanical Garden.
N is for National Lakeshore. Our boat tour of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was beautiful, and we’re SO happy we chose to sit inside (many people weren’t so happy sitting on the top deck when it started to rain!).
O is for Oregon Shakespeare Festival. We attended A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was very good!
P is for Pasties (pronounced PASS-tee for singular or PASS-teez for plural). It’s a portable meat hand pie, originally brought to the area by Cornish miners. We had to try one (while in Michigan!), they were… just OK. :o)
Q is for Quacking! These ducks all make a beeline when they see people on the pier. Dinnertime!
R is for Rafters. The Paradise Lodge at Mount Rainier National Park has some cool lanterns hanging from some cool rafters!
S is for Sea Stars. I used to call them star fish, but now that I know better, I do better, haha!(“Sea star” and “starfish” refer to the exact same marine animal, but “sea star” is the term because these creatures are not actually fish.)
T is for Teeny Tiny Camper! This little guy was perched up on some kind of platform, just on the side of the road in Tillamook, Oregon. How do people find the time to create such things!? Did they actually use it at some point? I want the backstory! :o)
U is for Underground. We visited Lava Beds National Monument in Northern California and went underground into some lava tube caves. The monument contains over 800 lava tube caves.
V is for Voyageur (whew! V wasn’t too hard to find this go around!). This giant Voyageur is just outside Ranier, Minnesota, near Voyageurs National Park.
W is for World War II. This tugboat, Tug Ludington, participated in D-Day. Thank you for your service! It now lives in Kewaunee, Wisconsin.
X is for Xercise. We climbed 207 steps but were rewarded with a great view of Lake Huron and this arch on Mackinac Island. We rode our bikes around the island (which is only just over 8 miles). Pro tip: ride clockwise rather than counter-clockwise. We did this, and we avoided the masses of people going the other way. Yay!
Y is for Yellow. Acres and acres of yellow!
Z is for Zoo. We rode our bikes on the Ahnapee Trail in Wisconsin and came across a small town zoo. We had the place to ourselves. There were goats, pheasants, a white fox…and not much else, haha!
That’s it for the random A-Z photos! Certainly not all of them, but I’ll be able to recall at least these 26 bits and pieces from our 2026 summer travels. I hope you have a terrific day and get to do or learn something NEW today!
Happy Monday! Boy, am I behind on updating my various lists! I think I have something NEW for each and every list!
For my Waterfalls list, we visited Wagner Falls, Miners Falls, Horseshoe Falls, Spray Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls – all in Michigan. The main photo above is of Spray Falls on the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.
Next, for my National Parks list, we recently visited Voyageurs National Park. We have 24 more to go until we have visited them all. Can we make it?! :o)
Then, for my Lighthouse photo collection, I’ve photographed Devil’s Island Lighthouse, Raspberry Island Lighthouse, Round Island Lighthouse, and Cheboygan Crib Rear Lighthouse.
For my Trolls list: We visited all five trolls in the Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, area. They were Ronny Funny Face, Alexa’s Elixir, Barefoot Frida, Jacob Everear, and Long Leif. Then we visited Benny the Beard Fisher in Germfask, Michigan. He was a favorite (photo below). The other photos are on the Troll list page.
And lastly, for my movie location list, we visited Mackinac Island, where Somewhere in Time was filmed. We watched the movie the night before we visited and cracked up at how sort of cheesy and dramatic this 70’s film was. Haha! I had seen the film, but my hubby had not. The Round Island Lighthouse gets put on my Lighthouse list as well as on the movie locations list. A two-fer! :o)
Updates complete. It’s been fun visiting these NEW-to-us places. I hope you all have a terrific day and learn or do something NEW today!
Happy Thursday! As we traveled through North Dakota, we passed several sunflower fields, but we were usually on freeways and couldn’t stop to take photos. We finally found one where we could stop. What a cute, happy-looking scene! I loved it! Here is more of the field:
Have a great day! I hope you get to do, learn, or experience something NEW today!
Happy Wednesday! We’ve crossed off another national park from our bucket list. We visited North Cascades National Park. This is Diablo Lake. Isn’t the water a gorgeous color of aqua green?!?
I learned something NEW (from Google, of course) about how the lake gets this beautiful coloring. It’s partly because of “glacial flour”. I’d never heard of glacial flour before. When massive glaciers move down the mountains and grind against mountain rocks, it makes an ultra-fine powder called glacial flour. Then, on a bright, sunny day, the tiny dust particles floating in the water bounce blue and green light back to our eyes, while absorbing other light colors. So pretty!
We’ve hit all 3 national parks in Washington in the last few weeks. Time to move to another state, haha!
I hope you have a terrific day and get to learn or do something NEW today!
Happy Friday! I just have a couple of updates today. One to my Lighthouses List and one to my National Parks List. We recently visited Robinson Point Lighthouse in Washington and Olympic National Park. I thought the wildflowers in Olympic were beautiful! What do you think?
Let’s see…my lighthouse collection is at 32, and we’re at 36 out of 63 for National Parks.
Progress! :o)
Have a great day, and I hope you do or learn or experience something NEW today!
Happy Monday! We’ve been seeing and doing so many NEW things lately, I almost forgot to update my lists with these items. Ha! We’ve visited 3 NEW lighthouses: Cape Mears Lighthouse in Oregon, Cape Disappointment Lighthouse, and North Head Lighthouse in Washington. (The full collection is HERE).
We’ve added another movie location to my list. I confess I previously hadn’t watched the movie, Goonies, so the night before we were to explore Astoria, Oregon, we watched this classic movie. Someone mentioned that last year was its 50th anniversary. How did I not watch it before now?!? We saw the courthouse (which is now a museum), the house, and, of course, Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach, which were all filming locations in the movie.
And TA-DA! I made it past 100 waterfalls! I originally thought I’d keep track of waterfalls until I hit 100, but why quit now, huh? I filled the bucket, but we’re far from being done!
We hiked to three waterfalls in Mt. Rainier National Park and 8 of the 10 waterfalls in Silver Falls State Park in Oregon. They were all wonderful, but some had more water than others. I confess I didn’t snap photos of all of them at Silver Falls State Park.
And that’s about it for this week. I hope you all have an excellent week ahead and get to learn or do something NEW this week.
Happy Tuesday! We’re on the road again in our RV, so we’re seeing and doing lots of NEW things. It’s time to update a few of my lists.
First of all, we’ve been to 3 NEW lighthouses (and are scheduled to visit many more in the coming days). We recently visited Yaquina Head Lighthouse, Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, and Heceta Head Lighthouse in Oregon.
As for my National Parks list, we visited Crater Lake National Park. It was a clear day and very beautiful!
Next, I’ll update my waterfalls list. We went on a nice, short (3 miles round-trip) hike to Drift Creek Falls, near Lincoln, Oregon. It features a suspension bridge, as well as a waterfall! Can you see our tiny shadows on the bridge as we took the first photo? And the next photo is of the falls together with the bridge.
I love me a good list! Haha! Even more, I love learning, doing, seeing, and experiencing NEW things! I hope you get to learn or do something NEW today too! Have a wonderful day!
