120/365 - Sarah Swinging

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The Lovely Sarah visited this weekend to watch her brother graduate from Michigan Tech (congrats, Chris!). On Friday, we headed out to McLain to enjoy a day off. We had a great time doing silly things like swinging on the old playground equipment there -- boy did my arms hurt!

119/365 - Perceptions

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Today I had the pleasure of running into my old friend Sue. Sue founded and directed The Troupe, Michigan Tech's improv group. I was a member of the troupe for many years, and in that role, she was an amazing mentor and friend.

Now that she's retired, Sue (among other things) creates beautiful felted works of art -- including this one, "Perceptions", which recently won the jury's first place award at the Great Lake Showcase. Everything you see is felted wool -- yes, even the rocks!

118/365 - Exit Knob

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Turn here to exit.

117/365 - Exit Light

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Exit toward the light.

At an old Quincy boiler house.

116/365 - Exit Dark

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Exit only, please.

At the Rozsa Center, on the Michigan Tech campus.

115/365 - Boot

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A boot once used by a miner, at the Isle Royal mine. This boot was just outside a "dry house" -- a building where miners could change to and from their work clothes. This boot has likely been here since the mine closed in the 1930's.

114/365 - Hoist Wheel

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The Osceola #13 is an abandoned mine right in the middle of Calumet, Michigan. Its surface plant still stands, since it was one of the last few of Calumet and Hecla's mines which were still open when everything closed in 1969.

More than a year ago, someone bought the old steam hoist which was still left at the Osceola #13 mine. The owners (the township) disassembled this massive old piece of machinery and set it outside... where it's been ever since. It may not have been in perfect condition originally, but now it's beyond repair. Apparently the buyer didn't come through.

113/365 - Roundhouse Window

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The inside of a window in the Quincy Mine's old roundhouse. The walls are made of poor rock (rock without copper) straight from the mine, and the shadows are from the skeletal roof beams.

112/365 - Chair Overlook

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Someone once sat here, enjoying a beautiful view near Central Mine. The view has become a bit overgrown, and the chair's owner apparently hasn't been here in a long time.

Interestingly, this is not the only abandoned "overlook chair" I've found -- in fact, I've found quite a few. Apparently it's quite a pleasant way to spend time!

111/365 - Faucet

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It's spring! Let's get ready to water flowers...

110/365 - Sculpture

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A sculpture -- actually, the sculpture -- on the Michigan Tech campus. It's in front of our Humanities and Fine Arts building, the Walker Center. I have no clue who the artist is, or even the name of the piece. It is not even written on a plaque.

109/365 - Secret Sharing

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A pile of points, for use in the Cryptography class which I'm teaching tomorrow. We're discussing Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme -- a semi-magical method of sharing a secret among several people, so that a certain number have to get together to figure out what the secret is.

108/365 - Wire and Shaft

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I have an unusual ability -- a strange knack for finding abandoned mines. Sometimes I'll literally walk into the woods at random, and come across ruins or a shaft. Of course, up here, that's not so hard -- if rock poked its head above the dirt, someone probably sunk a shaft on it!

This bit of barbed wire has fallen around one such shaft. The lines in the background are old rails welded together across the cement mouth of this vertical shaft. I'm not sure exactly what this was, except that it's almost certainly associated with the Adventure Consolidated mine. It was on top of a beautiful rocky bluff which I thought I'd check out, on my way home from Madison.

107/365 - On the edge!

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This weekend, I visited the lovely Sarah down in Madison. We took a day trip to Devil's Lake State Park, which is a beautiful park build around a lake surrounded by steep, rocky cliffs.

We stopped many times to enjoy the views of the lake. While I didn't officially TAKE this photo (since I'm in it and all), I did help Sarah compose it with my camera, and I posed. So, I'm using it!

Also, I wasn't nearly as close to the edge as it looks. Sarah composed VERY cleverly.

106/365 - Recycle

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Remember everyone -- recycle! If you didn't, we wouldn't have lovely blue and yellow bins like these.

105/365 - Boiler Alley

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Here's the last photo in this mini-series from the Quincy #5 Boiler House. This doorway enters the main boiler house, allowing access behind the large brick boiler supports. The boilers would have vented into pipes along this corridor, which collected together and exited into the old smokestack outside.

104/365 - Boiler Foundations

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Here's the next photo in my series documenting this lovely old boiler house: this photo comes to you from next door to yesterday's photo -- an addition to the old Quincy #5 Boiler House. These were foundations for a horizontal boiler, which provided steam for the nearby steam hoist.

You can also see the end of a railroad spur with allowed the Quincy & Torch Lake Railroad to drop off coal, showing through the window. On the left is an old cart which has been left to rot in these ruins.

103/365 - Boiler Door

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A doorway in the old Quincy #5 Boiler house -- a large brick ruin which once served up steam for the massive #2 Hoist, the world's largest steam hoist.

I swear, this spot was set up by the God of Photographers. The door leans against its companion in a perfect way, surrounded by wonderful abandoned textures and shapes. Every time I'm up at Quincy (which, as you may have guessed, is frequent), I feel compelled to try to capture this shot.

102/365 - Red

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Red. Yes, I started halfway through the spectrum, and I have now wrapped all the way around! Look forward to some less-organized color photos later, though -- as I find them.

101/365 - Purple

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Purple flowers, reaching towards the sun. Also notice the less-than-stellar bokeh of my Nikon 18-200 at 200mm.

100/365 - Blue

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Blue, at one of the shafts of the old Indiana Mine. I followed the instructions.

99/365 - Green

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Green. I'm not sure whether these are crocus or iris leaves popping up -- either way, I like them.

98/365 - Yellow

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Yellow it is, with a tinge of green. (The weird color inconsistency is, I think, because of the reflective properties of the sign.) There are a lot of signs like this around the Michigan Tech campus -- having most of your housing on one side of a major highway, and all of the academic buildings on the other, tends to cause problems!

97/365 - Ribbons

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Bright orange ribbons, fluttering in the wind -- they caught my eye as I drove past. Sadly, these beautiful ribbons mark out where the line forms at the local food bank.

96/365 - Plaster

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One thing about Copper Country ruins is that, as a rule, only the foundations remain. If the upper walls exist at all, it's only the outside bits -- brick or cement, at most. It's rare to see a glimpse of something so commonplace as plaster, or lath. They've all been torn down, rotted away, or been destroyed over the years. Here's an exception to that rule, up at the old wood-frame entryway to the Quincy Mine's blacksmith shop.

95/365 - Planting Season

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Amazingly, I'm already tilling out in the garden, and some of the perennial herbs are popping up already. This rusty old cultivator is coming in handy!

94/365 - Buds

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We had rain today -- the first real rain of spring (everything else was just fog and snow). I wandered up to Quincy, looking for a photo. In the middle of the Roundhouse, these buds were hanging out, covered in droplets. I don't know what they are -- pussy willows? Seems unlikely, but I don't know otherwise.

93/365 - Upper Jacobs Falls

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Today, I paid an unexpected visit to Jacob's Creek, a lovely creek up in the Keweenaw. I was trying to find the old Arnold Mine's #2 shaft. The #1 Shaft is located on the banks of Jacob's Creek, and the creek even flows underneath its rockpile. The creek has one well-known waterfall pretty far downstream, but basically the entire stream is a series of waterfalls, all set in a deep and rocky gorge. This photo was taken far upstream, near the rock pile.

92/365 - Crocus

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You know it's spring when the crocuses start to pop up! I've been watching for a while, but these are the first that I've seen pushing up through the old grass. There were only a few white ones, and even fewer purple ones (which weren't surviving nearly as well as this lovely one).

Hoists and Reflections

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Two old hoists at the Quincy Mine, both of which once served the Quincy #2 shaft-rockhouse. These are, from left to right, the newest (and largest), and the middle hoist. The original is behind my back.

91/365 - Hungarian Falls

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Hungarian Falls is a beautiful series of waterfalls (and a deep gorge) just down the road from my house. I've photographed it during the spring melt a few times before.

This is just a small seasonal waterfall on a side stream (which doesn't even flow during the summer!), but with beautiful red sandstone in the streambed. The waterfalls like at the Keweenaw Fault, which separates the beautiful red Jacobsville Sandstone from the darker (and greyer) Portage Lake volcanic flows.