My Second Adventure: Part 3

After playing on the beach at Little Girl's Point and visiting all the waterfalls, I headed out to Black River Harbor. I really wanted to find some agates and someone who could tell me I had in fact found some. I also wanted to draw the suspension bridge that crosses the river.

I had intended to do some sketching of the various waterfalls, but I never took my paper out of my backpack. So when I got to the harbor the first thing I did was sit down and draw the bridge. The bridge is a part of the North Country Trail, too.

The sign on the bridge is one of the blazes showing the North Country Trail route.

This is when I got to speak with some of the people on the college trip. One of the chaperones joked with me that he just hoped that by the time the students got out of college they would know how to tie their shoes and wipes their backsides. This was in reference to how some of the students walked down to the beach without their shoes and then complained about the path being gravel. I wasn't sure how to respond, I sort of chuckled because it was funny, but I didn't know how seriously to take him.

The bridge from my bench.

Anyways, I finished my sketch then took a break up at my car and headed back down to the beach. I plopped myself down about halfway between some of the college students and a man who was agate hunting. I started to "dry agate" as this man called it, just shifting the rocks around to find agates. Other than some sea glass and pretty rocks I wasn't sure I had found anything. So I took my maybe-an-agate and asked him if it was.

He said he didn't think so, and he didn't have a good example to show me what an agate did look like. He had a couple that he was going to polish and see if they were. About two minutes later as I was heading back to my spot I heard him call out, "I found one!" He gave that one to me as an example. I then quickly found three others and realized I must have thrown several of those back earlier in the day because I didn't think they were agates. Go figure.

The confirmed agates. The one in the top left is the one given to me, I think the one
on the top right is pretty awesome, the agate is still in its host rock.

I ended up with the three I had found, the one he gave to me, and a small collection of unconfirmed but suspected agates. I also have a small collection of sea glass and some pretty rocks.

My unconfirmed agates, though some look pretty obviously agatey to me.

My sea glass.

The pretty rocks I found, the trapezoid one in the middle has a flower pattern on it.

Something else I found a few of, wishing stones. These stones can be any size but they must have a single solid band of another color (usually white/quartz) around them. There can't be any offshoots or other bands (although I saw one site says there can be more bands, but they too have to be solid). The story is if you make a wish on a wishing stone it will help the wish to come true. However there are three separate stories, you have to either: keep the stone(s) close to you, give them away, or throw them back into whatever water source they came from. I'm keeping mine because I think they are cool.

Wishing stones.

At the end of my adventure I head to leave because I was tired, but also because the black flies had discovered I make a tasty meal and the sun was cooking my brains and even though I had applied sunscreen, my arms. The drive home was unexpectedly short, but I still didn't get home until about 6:30.

A fly landed on my camera lens when I took the picture, but there is a tiny figure
out there on the beach, that is the man that gave me the first agate.

I haven't decided where to go on my next adventure yet, but thanks for joining me on this one. I really am having fun with this discovering who I am on my own and what I really want to do! So until next time find an adventure of your own and see who you are!

My Second Adventure: Part 2

Well after digging through the pebbles on Little Girl's Point and not really sure I'd found anything, I took the directions from the couple I met, since my phone has no signal up there and my Wisconsin map only shows the roads and not the names of that section of Michigan, and headed over to Black River Harbor.

Seriously easy to get there from Little Girl's Point.

I have a hard time imagining flying off this thing with nothing more than skis.

The road that goes to the harbor has a little offshoot that goes past the Copper Peak Ski Jump. You can get rides to the top in season. I drove by just to see, you can see the top of it from the main road, but it isn't as cool as being at the base of the jump, however if you do decide to check it out, don't, I repeat Do NOT continue on that road to meet up with the main road at the other side. Turn around and follow the nicely paved, well cared for blacktop road that you came in on. The other half is extremely worn out, potholed, washed out and really only half there. You'll spend more time dodging holes than watching for traffic coming at you, although I think all the locals know not to go that way.

Anyway, after my death defying drive down what should have been a simple detour, I made my way to the first of four scenic spots to hike to and view waterfalls. I visited them all.

This was the easiest hike of the four, allowing a little time for dancing in the woods.

I started with a lunch break in the parking lot of Conglomerate Falls. No picnic benches, I just opened the backseat door of my van and sat on my blanket and enjoyed my lunch in the peaceful almost quiet of nature. I don't think any cars even drove by.

After lunch I made my way down the trail to a look out deck, there was only one couple on the trail, one of the benefits of going before summer vacation starts for the schools if you don't have any kids you want to bring along.

Next was Gorge Falls. The path I took was only 400 feet to the lookout, but it was pretty much all stairs going back up. And this was the smallest staircase of the last three waterfalls.

Really is in a gorge, the walls tower above the river here.

Looking down the gorge from the falls.

Next was Sandstone Falls. You can probably see that I am getting quite red in the face. While it wasn't particularly a hot day, I was exerting myself more than usual.

Which the park services are nice enough to warn you about.

Really take your time climbing back up this trail. There are a lot of steps and they
are taller than your average stairs, plus they are a little washed out and kind of crooked.

There was a college group at these falls, you can just see two of their chaperones sitting in the upper right corner. Later I found out that the group was supposed to be going to Canada for their trip and ended up sitting at the border for an hour and a half before they were told they couldn't come into Canada. So they came back to explore Michigan.

The last falls before you get to the harbor is Rainbow Falls. I like this one the most, not because the lookout point has the best view of the falls, because it really doesn't, but because it has a constant rainbow in the mist created by the falls.

Distances listed for the North Country Trail backpackers.

The rainbow.

Everyone has probably heard of the Appalachian Trail, and now thanks to the book and movie "Wild" many people are aware of the Pacific Crest Trail, but did you know there is a trail that runs 4,600 miles from North Dakota to New York? And that it passes through this spot on the Black River and later through the Porcupine Mountains National Scenic Park?  I never realized this until I started doing a little research on the Pacific Crest Trail and discovered there are actually eleven designated Scenic Trails in the United States. The Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin is one of them too.

Blue blazes marking the North Country Trail.

I went a dozen or more paces down the trail, just to say I did. I was contemplating actually hiking the full 4,600 miles when I looked down and saw a grey feather. According to one site, a grey feather means peace and neutrality (middle of black and white), authentic[ity], flexibility. I'm not sure how this relates to my thoughts on hiking or backpacking the North Country Trail, but I have been considering hiking the 1,200 mile Ice Age Trail. And have started training for this potential 2-4 month excursion. (Read about my interest in feather color here.)

At the river's edge. You can get a better view of the falls from the little lip
of rock immediately under the viewing platform, although the signs warn against it.

A lot of things to see on hikes. Also a lot of time to think about everything and wonder about things. Internal musings, the world around you, choices you've made or have yet to make. I had one more stop on this adventure and then it was enough for the day. I'll share the end of my story for this adventure later.

My Second Adventure: Part 1

Having one successful adventure under my belt and with a case of the blahs mounting, I began planning my next adventure.

I've always been a rock hound. Finding pretty rocks wherever I went as a child, I quickly had boxes and boxes and five gallon buckets of rocks under my bed and in the basement. My dad still brings home pretty rocks when he finds them and we add them to our rock edges on our gardens or place them on one of the shelves on our porch.

So where should I go on this second of (hopefully) many adventures on my journey to learn how to be alone in the world? A place that had always been a favorite of mine for finding rocks, Lake Superior of course!

My study guides, while good pictures and descriptions are nice, nothing
beats having someone hand you an agate and say this is what they look like!

This time though, I had a new destination in mind.

As a family we've always gone to Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park to see the waterfalls and play on the shore. And there are rocks a plenty to see there for sure. This time I wanted to find some of the sought after agates of Lake Superior and the one place I kept hearing about, but didn't think I'd ever been (at least in my memory which can be somewhat faulty) was Little Girl's Point.

I decided on this location because I saw an Outdoor Adventure Class offered by Nicolet Technical College for a trip to Little Girl's Point to hunt for agates and concretions. I thought 'that would be fun' but I also realized I could go up there on my own and not have to pay the class fees. Then I would also be able to go at my own pace. The only problem? I don't know what to look for when searching for agates in the raw right off the beach. I'm used to seeing polished agates in jewelry and at stores.

So what did I do? I went to the library and checked out a couple books on Lake Superior agates and studied for a day!

These books turned out to not be so helpful. The pictures and descriptions were great, but it is still really hard to convey what to look for when all you have are pictures and words. I needed someone there to explain to me what I should be looking for.

This is all the signage there is for Peterson Falls. You can see how close
to the highway change it is in the background.

A rustic bridge to get over a mucky spot on the trail

On my way north I stopped at Peterson Falls. When you get onto Hwy. 2 you almost immediately turn right onto a gravel road. I missed it because I was going around a truck that happened to be turning where I needed to go. Figures. So I pulled in the next driveway and headed back.

I climbed down to get right up next to the falls. It was a very nice fairy habitat.

There are "Private Property" postings to the right, but when you get to the end of the public roads there is a minuscule turn around, probably only big enough for two cars, and a path leading into the woods to the left. That is where you need to go. (I was confused and ended up asking for help from a man at the business at the beginning of the road.) You can hear the river as soon as you head into the woods. The whole trip was full of perfect fairy landscapes. (Read about my fancies here.)

The falls from down river.

After Peterson Falls I went to Superior Falls on the Montreal River just over the border into Michigan. Superior Falls is managed by a power company, they have to keep enough water running over the falls to keep it scenic while they divert some to make electricity. I scrambled around on the rocks to get a good view of the falls. Then I headed back out to the shoreline and looked for some rocks and agates.

A much more visible sign, probably due to the fact it is funded by Xcel Energy.

I also went beyond this point and played at being a mountain goat to get some more pictures.

On the shore at Superior Falls. All I found here were pretty rocks.

My main destination for this trip was Little Girl's Point. It is a nice piece of shoreline, and quite covered in rocks, I just didn't know what I was looking for in terms of agates and the couple I talked to were novices as well and were really just looking for pretty rocks to use in their aquarium.

I had hoped that the rock here was an agate, turns out probably not,
but I kept it and the sea glass.

A little creek running into Lake Superior at Little Girl's Point.

Plenty of rocks to choose from!

I spent some time on the shore here and then headed out for the second half of my adventure. I headed east for some more falls and another beach. But that's for next time!

Testing a New Style

I've been thinking about starting a new style of pottery for a while now. I've gotten bored with my current style. I mean it has been six years that I've been doing my current style. Imagine wearing the exact same thing or eating the exact same thing every. Single. Day.

My current style, fun, but I need something new.

It would be boring right?

Test tiles.

I begin new projects in one of two ways. I think about it, drag my feet, eventually buy the supplies and then one day, down the road somewhere, maybe, I begin the project. Or I get really excited about it, buy all the supplies right away, and when the supplies arrive I start the project with a fervor, spend a couple weeks on the project and then I lose interest and the supplies don't get used again until months later.

Test pots pre-firing.

I don't know which way ends up being more productive. The long slow build, or the burst of energy. The thing with either way, at least I have the supplies now and I can go back to it any time the energy strikes again.

Stain test tiles

This new style of pottery has been long in the building up, gathering supplies, and I've finally made the glazes and begun testing colors and technique. I just got the last chemical I needed to mix a big batch of the main base glaze, so if I like the test glazes I can get into production of this new style.

All the containers of test glazes and stains.

...I got the test glazes out of the kiln. I'm going to have to retest. Either the glazes are too thinly applied on several of the tests or the glazes are just not right.

Test tiles post firing.

Anywhere the white base glaze was thick enough the stains look great, exactly how I wanted them to look, but the yellow colored glaze is not what I was hoping for and the lavender glaze didn't seem to melt at all. This is the third time I have tried a purple glaze and not had it turn out, maybe I'm not meant to have a purple glaze.

Test pots post firing.

The green isn't quite the color I was looking for, I was hoping for a more bright, spring green color. I can still play with that one and the blues are nice, the glaze was just a little thin.

I like how the stains came out except for the lavender stain.

I guess I have more testing to do before I can start using my new glazes. Back to the drawing board and more tests. Good thing I have more cottage cheese containers!

My First Adventure!

I live in fear, or I've let fear run my life. Either way I'm tired of it. I'm tired of doing the same things over and over and expecting to be happy this time. (Insanity. Right, Mr. Einstein?) And that was how I was starting to feel. Insane.

This last week I took some of my pottery over to a shop I've had my work at before and I got talking with the owner and one thing led to another and I kept saying "I can't" to each thing she was telling me to do. She said to me, "it isn't that you CAN'T, it's that it scares the SHIT out of you."

...Um, well, you know... She was right.

Life, and most aspects of it, especially if it is new to me, does scare the shit out of me. I follow the same routine every day because change scares me. Finding a place on my own scares me, being on my own scares me and the thought that one day I might give in and get married only because being on my own scares me, well that scares me too.

I want to travel. I want to see the whole country someday. And it is very likely I will be doing that on my own so I've got to get used to doing things on my own. Anyway the owner of the shop gave me an assignment, at least that's what it felt like to me. She told me I had one week to go visit the covered bridge that is only about 40 minutes from my house and I had never been to it, and the Wisconsin Concrete Park Museum in Phillips, which again I had never been to. And she'd check in a week to see if I had done these two things.

So that's what I did today. It only took me about 5 hours or so to do the whole loop from home to the bridge to the concrete park and home again.

Here's some pictures of my short (although very freeing) adventure.

I found the bridge!

I sat here for about 45 minutes doing a sketch/painting of the bridge.

I haven't done perspective in a while, my drawing is a little off, but not too bad.

Plus this gave me an excuse to pull out the watercolor supplies I got at the beginning of the year to try and Be a Daily Creative.

At the concrete park.

I tried joining some of the men... I didn't quite blend in!

And on a side note... go to the bathroom whenever you can or be prepared with some toilet paper in your glove box. Just saying...