Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation and across the world. It is just past 6:00 a.m. in "The City."

Not unlike my last blog, this blog will take a few twists and turns en-route to my final destination. So, be sure that your tray tables are stowed and your seat is in the upright position.

We have a current temperature of 25° en-route to today's high of 46° under partly-cloudy skies. Sadly, we won't see a permanent temperature in the 50s until April 7! Plus, Saturday's high temperature of 38° will be accompanied by an 80% chance for rain/snow. Enough already! At least one thing is for certain, the sun will rise this morning @ 7:36 a.m. and set tonight @ 8:05 p.m.

A quick bit of news from the world of baseball for tomorrow. The Cubs will open against the Rangers in Arlington, TX @ 4:05 p.m. with Jon Lester taking the mound. My beloved Red Sox will open the season in Seattle against the Mariners @ 7:05 p.m. Finally, the Tigers will be in Toronto to face the Blue Jays @ 3:37 p.m. Yes my friends, I am born again, there's new grass on the field.

But on to life in the minor leagues of GH. I went to my P/T appointment yesterday where things went as expected. I'm still regaining strength and I have a ways to go, but I am making progress. Ben took some measurements of my mobility and sent those over to the doctor's office in time for my 1:00 p.m. appointment there. I am three months into what is a four to six month recovery schedule. So, while I am still weak, and while my rotator cuff will never be 100%, I can now lift 20lbs and use a shovel, as long as I don't throw dirt over my shoulder. Since I haven't done that in years anyway, I'm okay.

A side note, I was able to accumulate a shade over two miles of walking yesterday by the time Mary and I had completed our tour of Rosy Mound Natural Area, one of the many great parks in the Ottawa County Parks System. Naturally, we had to take many pix while on our tour and I'll include some now. By the by, I took all of these photos with my 150 mm telephoto lens/glass on our Olympus DSLR camera.

Although it is hard to see, this approach to the beach from which we'd hoped to see the "Big Lake" was ice covered and not safe for our passage.

Uphill would have been okay, but ice and our fear of falling precluded our following this trail.

However there were lots of trails, but as noted above, some were ice-covered and slippery, at least for people of a certain age.

Yes they were, and yes we did!

Although the temperature was 46 degrees, the forest primeval was cold enough to retain much ice and snow.

Still, the paths were walk-able and we enjoyed ourselves.

Mary espied this tree with a knothole that looked like a squirrel or bird was using it as a hme.

It was this view on Monday that caused us to go back to Rosy Mound yesterday.

 

Or, maybe it was this view.

On the way home, we stopped for this shot of a closed sand pit just outside of the city limits.

A shot of the dormant BLP power plant on Harbor Island.

Both lighthouses from the City Beach, or is it the State Park Beach? Who can tell one grain of sand from another?

The outer lighthouse.

And the inner lighthouse.

As we motored towards our final destination, Spring Lake, you can see the ice still on the beaches of the "Big Lake"

Later today, we have an appointment at the chiropractor and then tonight, we are returning to Spring Lake and our favorite local concert venue, Seven Steps Up! We will be seeing to an artist whom we have never seen/heard, named Beth Neilsen Chapman, a singer-songwriter who has written tunes for Willie Nelson, Alabama, Faith Hill, and many others. Like Carole King, Chapman is a fine vocalist and performer. I've included this track from YouTube™ of her singing her own song, Sand and Water. I think we are going to like her performance. I hope you do too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdcSNruapQk&start_radio=1&list=RDSdcSNruapQk&t=5

Ciao.