View down Ready Street

View Down Ready Street and a Burger

A couple of weeks ago we took a little trip up to the Marquette area.  Marquette is a mining town on Lake Superior.  Our son and his family are in the process of moving there.  He is already living there with our middle granddaughter, and the rest of his family will follow at the end of this school year.

It seems like a long way away -  like driving to another country. Well, actually, if we didn't make a left turn, we would be in Canada real soon. It is about an hour to the Mackinac Bridge, then five miles across that to the Upper Peninsula, then miles and miles through woods and little towns, and then 25 miles through TREES with no sign of a human being and no cell service, and then   -  wham  -  there's a    big city ( by northern Michigan standards anyway).  The terrain is different, the rocks are different, the buildings are different . . .   Everything is about mining  -  even the iron colored dust in the air.  I sound like I have never been out of town, don't I?

This little journal sketch is the view out of their dining room window.  It's hilly there, and the area is full of spires and towers, and fortunately for Middle Granddaughter, it has a "Big Boy" restaurant.

We painted snow covered pine trees today in my class.  We are trying to embrace the idea of snow.    It is snowing as I write this, and there is a spotlight of sun on the buildings across the Bay.  The sky is dark, and the bare trees look very black.  I could sit all day and watch the light and colors change on the Bay,  but I'd better not.  I really need to get going on my Thanksgiving dinner list, although it does not change year to year.  Some things you just don't mess with.

Our homework assignment for our journals this coming week is to paint/sketch a dish  -  maybe something you only get out at Thanksgiving.