Add to the Bucket List

Cherry blossom photos
visit the cheese shop
photograph downtown before it changes much more



Almost a decade ago, I drove out the Old Mission peninsula in Spring. The patterns of the crops were evident and so reminiscent of Tuscan art that it was hard not feeling as if I were in another country. The cherry blossoms outlined some fields while Lombardy poplars outlined others. The straight pins of the poplars against the fuzzy frilled outline of the cherry blossoms stuck in my mind. The window of opportunity to photograph these things is small. Blossoms start turning to fruit rather quickly once the weather decides to stay warm. I missed those chances many years for lack of a camera. And the last two years I've missed those chances because I just ran out of time after the work day.

This year, with all of the development around town, it is more important than ever to capture the Traverse City that I know. It will not be long now and the city will have grown and become something that I don't know as well as when I was younger. The Traverse City we have now is a good city. And some of the changes will make it great. But other changes will make it look like every other city in Michigan with a population of over 100,000. It will be a teenager who has succumbed to peer pressure.

Well.... pier pressure. We are building one. We need better roads and a permanent solution to some infrastructure issues more than we need a pier. But the city council has decided. And I certain that it will be a waste of time as well as a scar on the bay. It will also be concave in relation to wave action so I am pretty sure it will fall apart. I'm no engineer. But every pier/break wall I have ever seen is convex against the wave action to reduce the power in the waves and protect the shore from the ravages of ice and erosion. But hey.... I'm not an engineer, I just admire the ones in Scandinavia that have been doing this longer.

And no that I do not have to deal with the constant criticism of He Who Knows, I can explore a local cheese shop and not worry about my taste buds meeting with his expectations. If it is the best cheese I've ever eaten then it is the best cheese that I have ever eaten. If the same is not true for him, he can not spoil it for me. I will find out later when I taste better that it was not the best. But at least I will have had the option of learning it myself. We love cheese in this house and it could be a really great adventure. And there is a farm not to far away that makes smoked butter. That could be a good adventure too.