Camping in July - Flowers of Michigan

The last few days of June, and leading into July, I took a short camping trip to Allegan Michigan. This is something that my family and I do every year, but the last two we missed. It was exceptionally nice to get to take a break from the house after all of this time.

Jewelweed - Touch Me Not

These are always cool to see, and grow in the campground every year. Their seed pods explode on contact, and can launch the seeds feet away. The flowers are also beautiful.

Mushroom Group

I don't know the exact species of these, but there were a couple groups of them. All of the different groups may have been linked underground, and just have been different fruiting bodies. This would result in something like the "fairy rings" that people see sometimes.

Ponds

The campsite has two private ponds, and connects to Dumont Lake. There are quite a few aquatic plants growing in this pond. This gave it a much more natural look than the first pond.

Aquatic Plants - Spatterdock

Spatterdock - Nuphar advena

I am thinking that the species for these are Nuphar advena, but it could be something slightly different. The leafs are heart shaped, and flowers closed instead of the round leafs and open flowers of a water lily. It was very cool to see all of these about to bloom. Wish I could have been there a couple more days to see the progression of the flowers.

Bittersweet Nightshade

Sadly, this plant is invasive to the Great Lakes. It was very pretty, and probably my favorite flower that I saw on this trip. Guess the pretty flowers try to mask the poisonous and invasiveness of this plant.

Duck (Mallard)

I don't know an incredible amount about birds, but I am thinking that this is a mallard duck. They ran around the two ponds throughout the days we were camping, and provided a couple chances for photographs.

Hope you enjoyed the images :)

All images taken with a Nikon D3200 in Allegan, Michigan USA

MondayRed - Ashes in a Fire

A little experimentation with a new tripod resulting in a few interesting images, and these being two of them. Burning fires and the ashes left over can provide some rather cool looking pictures at times.

Fireworks in the Summer

It has kind of become a reoccurring thing for my family to do fireworks for the 4th of July. We all go to my aunt and uncles house, buy whatever we can afford, and eat some of the food that everyone brought. This year it was barbecue ribs with assorted sides. The fireworks were even more assorted though.

There are always the smaller fountain style fireworks.

And it is always fun to do blurry pictures with sparklers :)

All images taken with a Nikon D3200

A Garage Sale With Great Finds!

The first time I went camping this summer, we spent one of the days going to sales that people were having. One of which we found on a sign on the side of the road. The only clue was that it said "rocks", but I knew I wanted to find it. Once we did, it initially didn't look worth it, but there were indeed rocks.


The lady running the sale had been working with rocks and minerals her whole life, and had an entire barn filled with tons of them. Most of the crystals and geodes had been picked out already, but there is plenty more to love than just those.

All images taken with a Nikon D3200

Jellyfish in Color - A Soothing Experience

They have no eyes, no visible mouth, nothing that we would pick out as being animal like, at least not when compared to something like a dog or cat. Just clear, pulsating disk in water. There is something about jellyfish that I love, and this is probably starting to be a theme in my posts, but I do mean it.

I would like to own a decent jellyfish tank one day, but it may be a couple years before that is a possibility. These are not yet the cheapest pet on the market. I have also become fascinated with these sea angel (Clione). The tanks for them are a bit outrageous in price right now.

I am assuming that these are the standard moon jellies (Aurelia aurita), as this is the species most commonly kept.

This concludes the visit to the Sea Life Aquarium! On the way out was this huge giraffe made initially of Lego. There was a Lego exhibit built in the mall that the aquarium was in, and so this was by the entrance I went in.

All images taken with a Nikon D3200 at Sea Life Aquarium

Eels and Sharks - One of the largest tanks I have seen

I am not exaggerating when I say that this tank was huge. It contained anything from large sting rays to a six foot eel. It also was not a standard shape. I cannot help but imagine the work put into shaping this tank.

There were pretty nice coral inserts for this aquarium.

Inside of this aquarium was a six foot and three inch eel (1.9 meters).

All images taken with a Nikon D3200 at Sea Life Aquarium