Good morning GH. Did you miss me?  It is just past 8:30 a.m. in "The City" where the current temperature outside the Weather Window is 49° and we have just passed sunrise at 8:03 a.m. We are well on the way towards today's high of 58°. With only a 20% chance of showers today, it should be a good day to walk with Sugar the Weather Dog and then rake a few leaves. The balance of the week, through Thursday, is about the same, albeit with a lesser chance of showers. What's not to like?

In weekend sports news, the Michigan Wolverines, as previously mentioned, had the weekend off. The Spartans of MSU handily defeated the Indiana Hoosiers, 56 - 17. Northern Illinois University, home of the Huskies, defeated the Miami of Ohio Red Hawks, 51 - 41. For those who were watching, a last minute penalty to Notre Dame's Fighting Irish led to a loss to the Florida State Seminoles, in Florida, 27 - 31.

I started to watch the Bears and the Lions simultaneously through the use of the remote, but it got old. The Bears didn't get off the bus running, they fell under the bus, losing to the Miami Dolphins, 14 - 27. The Lions held on for a win over New Orleans, 24 - 23.

Mary was hard at work, but once she finished, we headed out to enjoy the fall weather and colorful leaves. We headed down to Hemlock Crossing County Park about 10 miles from here. I'll add a few pictures at the end. Mary has better pictures, soon to be available at http://marygoeswalking.blogspot.com/, her blog, perhaps later today or tomorrow. We also visited Rosy Mound Natural Area, just a few miles from GH. Mary and I also took pictures there. Ottawa County has many fine parks to choose from.

When we got home, we retired to the media room and watched a romance movie on the Hallmark Channel™. We followed that movie with an old Doris Day movie on TCM™. Then, I was ready for bed. I think that Mary had visions of indexes dancing in her head, so she stayed up to watch C-Span's Book TV.

While we were watching the latter movie, the southbound train came by. Two locomotives, 15 covered hopper cars, five of those dreaded black tank cars, and then a final covered hopper car bringing up the rear. When I was out walking with Sugar the Weather Dog yesterday morning, we noted that the rails through town are not always parallel and some of the ties are in need of replacement, hence my concerns over those tank cars. I wasn't awake for the northbound run. I noted as the train passed that the horn happy engineer was at the throttle.

So, that's about it for the last few days, except that I made it to the Irish Jam at the library Saturday afternoon and had a good time. Today I anticipate that morning walk, raking leaves, and some interaction with the girls before the sun sets at 6:53 p.m. I'll add some of my pictures now. Ciao.

Because I liked it.

A bit of the "Magic Light."

As a retired teacher, I just had to take a picture of this outdoor classroom at Hemlock Crossing.

Not uncommon in Michigan at this time of year. While Rosy Mound had this, Hemlock has no restrictions anytime. 

While I had many pictures to choose from, this one just looked good to me.