A bit more fun at 'South Beach' on Lake Superior

Dwight Peck's personal website

Summer 2024

A photographic record of whatever leapt out at us

You may not find this terribly rewarding unless you're included here, so this is a good time for casual and random browsers to turn back before they get too caught up in the sweep and majesty of the proceedings and can't let go.

A bit more fun at 'South Beach' on Lake Superior

3 July 2024, our last day here on this trip, and the wind's up a bit.

We're out with our friend Melvin for an earlyish walk on the beach.

The Porcupines lurk in the far off distance.

The nearest neighbor to the west, with a seriously eroding sandbank.

Melvin's taken a brief break whilst we were charging ahead, so now he's playing catch-up.

Melvin's often described as 'overweight', largely because he's hauling round a massive overcoat of fur, but he's also retaining his estimable speed at a full run. He may even be a bit more than half as fast as Choupette (who's nearly invisible at full throttle).

Mel does seem to pause for a breather more often, though.

This is just a brief reconnaissance to decide if this might be another suitable hike once the other members of our party are up and moving about.

It's not looking altogether promising.

From here, it's not clear that there's any beach at all left down there.

Eroding shoreline blues . . .

. . . nibbling away grain by grain of sand.

(The only thing that will bring more sand back is probably a grand winter storm, which would deposit sand and might rip away more of the shoreline trees.)

But presumably it's all in Nature's plan for us, and not to be questioned.

The earlier sprint seems to have tired His Melvinship a little bit, so . . .

. . . he's down for a nap.

No way, we have to go back, make the coffee for everybody, and report on our findings.

Here's the top of the sandbank dropping off about 40 meters in front of the South Beach cottage. With more sand piled up below this year, it's not as high now as it has been.

Chouper would love to leap down, but is doubtful.

Melvin feels the same way.

Perhaps they're trying to bolster each other's confidence.

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But it's not going to happen.

Choupette seen in a valiant effort to climb the tree at full speed -- she's now getting as much as six feet up, but happily the squirrels are still pretty safe for the time being.

Melvin watches, disapprovingly, but, as usual, makes no comment.

Leaping up onto the car is still the number one preferred exercise. (Melvin would not do well with this one either.)

Not all cats relish leaping up trees for fun.

Just now, Melvin is waiting for an animal TV show to come on, and we haven't got the heart to tell him.

Choupie's favorite indoor adventure every summer here has to do with venturing up and down the ladder to the loft.

She can clamber down as well as up but is much more careful about it.

Mr Mel's got better things to do.

We're back for another exploration down the beach a ways, this time with company.

The owners of that cottage are known to Kristin, and not to be envied.

The place looks doomed -- give it a few more years, at best, probably. Unless they move the buildings farther back into the forest.

Another branch of Kristin's family inherited the clan's original log cabin on the shore farther along towards the Porcupines. They've been trying to save it for decades by bracing up the shoreline with boulders and breakwater riprap, which has only made the situation progressively worse.

That's not proper driftwood thrown up by Lake Superior's fabled storm waves -- these have plopped right down out of the terra-no-longer-so-firma.

Today's beach hike looks to be drawing to a premature close.

This stretch of the beach has always been an awkward proposition, but this time it looks still more inconvenient.

Hey, where's Melvin?

-- Wait up, Melvin's still fighting his way on to Ontonagon.

-- Melvin!! Where you at?!
(We can see him slipping under obstacles about 20m ahead.)

-- Ach, watch it, my new light-blue sneakers!

Helpfully, Choupette has come back to talk Melvin into giving this folly up.

We resume our better-part-of-valor retreat from the beachy chaos.

We did stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood, back in 2021, and climb over all those big tangled symbols of Nature's violence, and made it all the way down to the Four Mile Rock Road. (Unfortunately, we later learnt that the Four Mile Rock itself was, and still is, 600 meters farther along, back in the woods.)

And this time we've got back successfully, with no casualties. Thanks, kids.

Now for some healthy Greenies catnip treats

And after a not terribly burdensome round of vacuuming, scrubbing, washing up, and stuffing up garbage bags with odds and ends to be carried south to be washed up for the next relatives and their appointees,
we drive away.

And hurtle south amid more or less unrelieved greenness, on a good road here (so we're still in Upper Michigan; the disgraced former Gov Scott Walker shot AR-15 holes in Wisconsin's road maintenance budget).

Back on the lake (featuring cottages that have proper bathrooms)

There appear to be at least three duck families patroling the shorelines this year, educating the young'uns in the ways of the duck world.

Two families are definitely mergansers, but this one seems to be mallards, and it's the only group hanging out round our North Bay.

We're in the Fourth of July shadow of horrible tourist behaviors, and for three days this Gentleman of the Waves (whilst we were sitting on our lawn 100 meters away, trying to read our interesting but complicated history book) spent 3 to 4 hours every afternoon, jetskiing in circles and bouncing up and over his own wakes, roaringly, mostly standing up to demonstrate daring and virility. It was a lakeside nightmare.

[Maybe those 'Second Amendment Solutions' morons were on to something after all.]

That wave, however, is approaching the Mussent Point shoreline with distinctly evil intent.

We could lose three inches of shore just this brief holiday season.

One of the malefactors swooping in for another pass. Hauling the kids round and round in an inflatable raft and having a grand old time. At the expense of the homeowners on the lake.

Slightly pleased to report that he screwed this one up. Now he's got to circle back and haul the kiddies out.

A meeting of the trampoline committee

Choupette sneaking about again, watching for careless voles, moles, shrews, mice, anything alive but small.

Oh, wrong again. She just wants to play with the little fellow's toys.

Our friends Cathy and Oscar were up for the Fourth and would like now to drive back to Chicago, but may be getting off to the later start than foreseen.

Tasty stagnant water is wherever you can find it.

We've got the Scaliger Castle in Sirmione on the screen today.

Next up: Random July photos of varying interest

BTW, that's the same Castello Scaligero (aka della Scala) in Sirmione from our hotel balcony, 2016.