Up North; Elks and Meteors

Back when we lived in SE Michigan, people loved to go "Up North" to get away from the city. That meant somewhere north in the "mitten" or lower peninsula of the State. Last summer we spent time in the "UP" or upper peninsula. This summer we're lucky enough to be spending time in the Gaylord area taking care of Beth's sister's dog on a lovely little lake near the top of the "mitten."

Miss Lucy is the reason we're here. Shortly after we took over her care, she stopped eating and had obvious pain in her mouth. After a couple of visits to the vet, a quarter sized abscess was discovered in her mouth. We think she got into some animal bones on a walk and did some damage under her tongue. Thankfully, she is recovering well and is back to her normal mellow, and stubborn, self.

My mom joined us to get a vacation from the Florida heat and we offered to take her to the local Elk's Lodge.

She wasn't excited until we showed her the park across the street...

... where they actually have a herd of Elk.

Gaylord is just off from I-75 and signs direct you to the Elk Viewing Area. The town is cute and it is a great place to stretch your legs.

The town even provided some scratching posts to help the Elk clean their coats.

















The Perseid meteor shower also coincided with our visit. Skies here are lots darker than they are at home, so we spent a couple of clear nights looking up from Judy & Gary's deck. Beth wanted to try getting some shots of meteors, so we set-up the camera on a tripod. All shots were made at 1600 ISO using a Nikon D750 with a twenty-five year old 35-70 zoom lens at 35mm exposing for 30 seconds at f2.8.