Colors of the wind (or the trees)

Today started out kind of crappy - I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, then when I managed to fall asleep, I slept through my alarm and got to work about two hours later than I was planning on. So when Brian asked me what I wanted to do today, all I really wanted to say was "Nothing." I'm really glad I controlled that urge, though, since we had a great day out. He suggested going for a drive, and we decided to go up North to see if we could find any colors yet. We thought maybe we'd ask Aunt Rose if she wanted to join us, but as it turned out, she was on a color tour of her own with her old people (senior citizen tour group). More on that later... Anyway, we headed out (in my car this time) toward Grayling. No particular reason why - just that it's North and we could get to it within the time we had, since we left Saginaw at 2:00. Around West Branch we started to see some really great colors - rich, vibrant reds, bright yellows, and technicolor oranges. We stopped at the rest area there - it's on a hillside and actually quite scenic for a rest area, and it also had some very pretty trees - so I could take some pictures. I was amazed to see that I only took 37 pictures today - I thought it would be more. The top three pictures here are from that rest area. I loved the coloring on the middle tree. It was so unusual that my eye kept going right to it.

After leaving the rest area, we continued North until we got to 55, then cut over to 127 by way of Houghton Lake. Unfortunately, it was kind of overcast up there, so the pictures I took of the lake weren't as nice as they could have been. When we got to 127, we headed back home. The bottom picture was taken from the car on the way to Clare from Houghton Lake.

On the surface, Aunt Rose's color tour would seem to have been more exciting than our improptu one. For starters, they were taking a train from Kawkalin to Gaylord, so there should have been lots of opportunity to see colors. Then they were supposed to visit a museum that had more colors and things to see. Unfortunately, she didn't get to see much color until they were practically in Gaylord, and there was a lot of walking to do, so between the two, she was already pretty unhappy. Mom and I were supposed to pick her up at 8:45 - that is, until Dad called and said she'd be two hours later than scheduled since the train broke down. She was not a happy camper when Brian and I picked her up at 10:45.

One last thing before I go to bed. Please take a miunute to click here and donate a mammogram to someone who can't afford one. It literally takes about 2 seconds, and could save a life. http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/