SMITTEN BY THE MITTEN!

My photo buddy and friend, Pat, had been flattering her homeland for so long, I couldn't stand not seeing it any longer!  With all the fun of anticipation, we planned - and had - the perfect trip!  "West Coast" is a very weird term for a place smack dab in the Midwest, but now that term comes easily to me. Because I was raised in the Pacific Northwest, I thought myself a true west-coaster-ner all my life, not acknowledging there could be another.  

You see, her home town is right on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan, which is also the western border of the state.  Make sense?  And the whole state is geographically shaped like a left hand mitten:

Michigan Chamber of Commerce, or some  brilliant entrepreneur came up with the slogan: "be smitten by the mitten" to better-sell the state's wonders.

And I was!  With the very first sunset of our first day, I was won over!  For the next nine days I loved every moment of discovery as we hiked, and walked, and visited with local folks, and ate, and photographed extravagant sunsets.

There is a phenomenon called "the golden hour".  After sunsets of my experience, comes darkness.  Not so on the "West Coast".  For over an hour after the sun has completely gone down, the world is awash in brilliant metallic pastels, like the air has magically taken on the hues of Black Hills gold jewelry. The sun is gone. But the atmosphere sighs a soothing lullaby.

I took this photo in "darkness", yet the wet sand and gentle breakers took on these hues:

Oh, I had so many wonderful new experiences: Playing in FRESH, UNsalted water, sunning 

 on white sand, eating delicate whitefish, and enjoying freshly-made, hand-dipped ice cream ...

... and discovering the charm of artfully-curving drift fences and rough-hewn boardwalks which must be in place to

curtail the ever-sifting and shifting delicate sand.

I have listed some of my favorite new things, but there is much more. So, there will be more posts to come while I show just how wholeheartedly I am
"Smitten".