Discover St. Joseph

Over the last few years I've been told repeatedly that "when the atmospheric conditions are just right you can see Chicago from St Joseph". I've looked and I've looked but until a few months ago I've not had much luck. I thought I saw industrial smoke rising from smokestacks a few time but no discernible downtown buildings. Since last fall I've seen bits of the Chicago skyline from St Joseph a number of times. Here is one example of the photos I have of the Chicago skyline from St Joe. You'll have to click on the image to see it larger. I suspect there are a few factors that have to come into play for a good viewing. Crisp, clear air Clear skies over Chicago A calm lake Low lake levels Knowing where to look The image above was taken at sunset on December 4, 2012 from Lookout Park in St Joseph. Whenever I take in a Lake Michigan sunset I look to the southwest to see if I can see Chicago. And every once in a while I get lucky. 

There are two great public locations in St Joseph devoted to the arts, the Krasl Art Center (which I've mentioned numerous times on this blog) and the Box Factory for the Arts . We've been to the Box Factory several times now and I'm at a loss to explain why I haven't written about it before. But, evidently I haven't. The Box Factory is currently hosting an exhibit that has me all excited. It's called, SHOOT!, and it's an all-photography exhibit... a first for the Box Factory. The Box Factory is dedicated to featuring local artists from Berrien County and Michiana and this exhibit features photographers from Berrien County and Michiana. And the best part of it, in my opinion, is that it's an "open" show. In this case "open" means it's not a juried show, your art work doesn't have to be judged as "good enough" to be a part of the show. It's open to all levels of photographers from those using cell-phone came...

The Sarett Nature Center has a butterfly house on their grounds. It's open late summer and into the fall. I have only been to one other butterfly house (and that a long time ago in a shopping mall) so I didn't know what to expect. It turns out, this butterfly house is much larger than the one I was to previously. And it has lots more types of butterflies too! We weren't able to see all of these types of butterflies but we did see 10 of them, only missing out on the Viceroy, and Common Buckeye. The butterfly house consists of a large screened in area with flowers, bushes, small trees, and a water pond. The water pond had a few fish in it. But let's face it, the main attraction is the butterflies. There were A LOT of them and they were easy to see and photograph. Sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, lol! Photographers who enjoy shooting butterflies will have a field day here. The butterflies are numerous and they land on lovely flora making ...

There is a fall color show going on all throughout southwest Michigan these days. I'm always on the lookout for great pics of fall colors so D and I headed over to the Sarett Nature Center with that goal in mind. This was our first trip to Sarett so we began with a stop at the main building to pay our admission fee ($6/person including admission to the butterfly house) and get a map. There are some interesting exhibits inside the main building including a few live animals and few stuffed ones. You can also gaze out the big windows at birds, chipmunks, and squirrels feeding and playing. I'm fascinated with owls so this figure really appealed to me. But enough with the inside displays. We were looking for fall color! The docent recommended two trails to us. One trail went to "the overlook" which gives you a treetop view of the surrounding forest, the other trail went down into the marshy area where there are wildflowers to be found. The trail to the...

Day One As luck would have it, the first day of our long Fourth of July weekend was a rainy day. Not a problem. There's plenty to do indoors and outdoors in the area. We started our day with breakfast by the lake. Yes, it was raining. Lightening too. But we didn't mind. We stopped at a local McDonald's and got a carryout breakfast (I love their oatmeal) then we drove to Lion's Park Beach. This is now a pay-to-park area which is patrolled and you will be ticketed if you don't pay the $5.00 fee on the spot or buy a season pass at the St Joseph City Hall. We have a season pass so we were free to park in the lot and watch Mother Nature's lightening storm over the lake. It was awesome! If you've never watched a storm over the big lake, be prepared for one terrific light show! As soon as we finished eating, we got out our cameras. D and I love to make a game of trying to photograph lightening bolts over the lake with the lighthouses in the background. Hey, i...

Spring in southwest Michigan is arguably the prettiest of all seasons. The acres upon acres of orchards make for a colorful and fragrant landscape. The other day, D and I took a drive out Coloma way in search of some fruit tree blossoms to photograph. If I were a more serious photographer I might have taken the time to research what blossoms would be available to photograph then but I'm not and I didn't. So when we came upon some fruit trees in bloom we had no idea what kind of blossoms they might be. There were lots of pretty ones though, and that was good enough for us. We stopped every now and then and got out of the car and made our way to the edges of this field and that. We photographed deep pink blossoms and bright white blossoms and pale pink & soft white blossoms. They made for stunning photos with the bright blue sky for a background. We shot a good number of pictures and decided to make one last stop at a field along Coloma Rd. We got out and took a couple pi...

Wow! We had a wicked summer storm last evening! It had been hot (90F) and humid all day yesterday so evening thunderstorms were no surprise. And since the National Weather Service and local media had kept the public abreast of the possibility of severe weather all day the fact that we got a monster storm was no surprise either. But boy, I was still amazed at the ferocity of this particular storm! D and I enjoy storm chasing.  For us, it's all about the photo op. We seek out good opportunities to photograph storms. Which is kinda funny really because as a kid I was terrified of thunderstorms and tornado warnings. And now I find it a fun challenge to capture Mother Nature's fury with my camera. Anyway, I kept an eye on the local radar throughout the day. When it looked like the storm was imminent, we headed down to Silver Beach. Unfortunately, the beach was closed and everyone had been asked to evacuate. So we went on to Lion's Beach where we found ourselves among ...

[Continued from Memorial Day Weekend, Summer is Here! ] Sunday The sun was shining when we woke up on Sunday but the weather forecasters were suggesting that the sky would cloud up in a few hours. So we made a bee line for our photo destination of Michigan City, IN bright and early. We've been to Michigan City before but this time we made the trip specifically to photograph the lighthouse. I've seen the lighthouse in several publications and it looks identical to St Joseph's inner lighthouse to me. I'm guessing it was the same designer who is responsible for both. It was sunny when we left St Joe, cloudy most of the drive down to Michigan City, and sunny again when we got there. :-) We had a bit of trouble finding Washington Park. We should have used our GPS, the map we had wasn't detailed enough to get us there from I-94. But we did get there! It took us approximately 35 minutes from St Joe. Washington Park is a pretty park with lots of grass and trees and p...