Nature on the Trails

Some days on the trails I don't see much more than squirrels and birds. And then other days I get lucky!

After the snow melted and we got back to fall, I had a particularly lucky day at Kensington.  First were the wild turkeys.

Next was the rather allusive albino deer.  She was a good ways down a ravine so the picture is rather blurry but I was excited just to see her!

This little herd of 4 is easier to catch.  They are very frequently is this field in the late afternoon and you can get relatively close to them.  I call them my "deer friends".

 
The view of the lake from this point always gives me a thrill but especially on a nice day.

Swans mate for life and this one was alone, sitting asleep on the ice.  I felt sad for her.

Animals of the human type - I thought this little boy and his grandfather were adorable with their matching walking sticks!

 A few days later we were back to a bit of snow - all lake effect snow for the most part - and hit the mountain bike trails at Milford for about 7 miles worth of hiking.

Fall - Winter - Fall

I've made it a point to do a LOT more hiking and walking this fall.  And I've had some amazing days and some that were rather dismal but at the end, I always feel better for having gone out and exercised my body and mind.

We had some really pretty fall days this year.  This was on the Milford Trail.

Photos of fall colors just never do them justice.

The next couple are from one of the paved trails at Kensington.  We'd had some rain and the nature trails were pretty muddy.

And then all the sudden it was winter!  This stick measure was after about 3 hours of snow. We ended up closer to 8 inches!

All shoveled by hand - I think I went out 4-5 times so I was only doing a few inches each time. The first layer was pretty heavy and wet but then the temp dropped and the rest was pretty light and fluffy.

A few days later I sent to Huron Metro Park in Brighton.  It was beautiful in that "post snow sunny day" kind of way.

The following weekend, we still had snow on the ground and I met up with Madison in Ann Arbor to go for a hike at Nichols.

Silly girls doing selfies on the trail!

Back to Kensington on the east side for a sunset walk.

With my shadow blending in with the shadow of the tree behind me!  I love the color of this long grass.

And the color of these berries always gives such a nice pop of color -, especially on sunny days!

Rowing for University of Michigan

After enrolling at UM, Madison was recruited to join the women's novice rowing team.  She had to go through a long try out period and was selected for the team!  The practices were brutal and she was spending up to 30 hours a week with the team.  She had NO free time at all.  But boy did she get buff!!

This led to their first scrimmage in early November with Ohio State. It was an overcast, blustery day. These were all novice rowers and very few had been on the team the previous year.  All us parents were walking around pretty confused as to what was going on!

I had no idea that they row in their socks - and they get really soaked when rowing!

They all have to listen and follow instructions very carefully.

Rowing is one of the ultimate TEAM sports.  They have to work in perfect unison to be fast.

I  had also thought they rowed in rivers - but this was clearly a lake!  And where they had all their practices too.

Ultimately UM won the scrimmage I guess although none of it was very clear as to how and why!

Madison was really glad to be "done".  She was standing there soaking wet and freezing with the wind blowing so hard.

I wasn't in quite the right spot for this picture opp but it's still cute. Madison is in the lower right corner.

And then two days later, she quit the team.  She made the tough decision that she didn't "love it" and it was impacting her studies/classes.  Something had to give - she was starting to stress and have panic attacks with just having too much on her plate.  She has no regrets for having joined and loved the experience but it was time to move back to focusing on school!

Washington DC in the Fall

At least a few years ago I had promised to take Austin to Washington DC.  We FINALLY did it this fall!  We rented an AirBNB in a neighborhood in the south east section of the city that is being totally revitalized.  We had this awesome little basement apartment.

And immediately after checking in, we headed over to the new Apple store in this awesome old building.  Austin's phone had locked up as we had parked the car in Detroit...not good. But the Apple store people were able to revive it and he didn't even lose anything!

Our first stop the next morning was the capitol and library of congress.  It was pretty overcast and threatening rain.

While we don't have royalty in the USA, the capital sure has some areas that are worthy of that title -just beautiful!

I found the library of congress to be pretty amazing.  I had never been there before and it was quite impressive.  Apparently, not as many people use it now in the internet days but it's still impressive.

We ended up getting soaked as we left the capital and LOC and went to the air and space museum.  Like, really soaked.  But Austin didn't mind and enjoyed it all!

The weather the next day was MUCH nicer!  These were apartment houses across the street from where we were staying that have been restored.  They were so pretty!

Next stop was Arlington Cemetary - the clouds started rolling back in but it was still a nice day.

I enjoyed Arlington more the last time I was there - much of it was under construction this time.  But Austin got a lot out of it.  It really is a moving place.

Later we went to Ford Theater where Lincoln was killed. There is a small museum across the street that had this amazing stack of books - every single one is about Lincoln!!!

Madison and I had done a monuments buy moonlight tour when we went to DC so I wanted to do the same with Austin - and it didn't disappoint other than being FREEZING cold!

Of course, we had to get pictures of ourselves in front of the Washinton Monument which is pretty cool at night.

Do I look cold?  I was wearing almost everything I brought with me and was still freezing!

This was probably the one memorial that Austin was the most excited to see.

Standing at the front of the Lincoln Memorial looking out to the Washington Monument.  Such a cool vantage point.

The monument is also pretty cool on a sunny day. 

On our last day, Austin wanted us to go somewhere that I had never been and wanted to go. So I chose the National Arboretum.   Wow am I glad we went there!  It was super cool.  This pine didn't look like anything special until you got up close to it and saw how long the needles were.  Austin was NOT thrilled that I needed him in the picture for perspective!

Although it was fall, so many trees were blooming and just spectacular all around.

I thought this view of the capitol was pretty cool looking from the arboretum.

We took the stairs way up into the top of the greenhouse. Austin humored me with a picture up there but was hanging on for dear life. He is not thrilled with heights and especially when you can see through the metal grate floor!

I have no such fear and loved being up in the tops of the trees!

From the outside looking at the greenhouse, you can get a better perspective of how high up we were!

And then it was a wrap! We hit the metro to take us back to the airport and home we went after a great little trip to our nation's capitol!