Poverty. The island, that is.
BIL has been up north in the Great Lakes region since before Easter. He's a pilot for an aerial surveyor company. Or something like that. I don't know exactly what all that means except that he and the engineer(?) fly all over the country for various contracts and is gone for long periods of time. Being the pilot, with not a lot of actual work work, he kills a lot of his time in the air by taking photos of the ground below while the engineer collects data or whatever it is he does.
This trip, I think, has been particularly interesting for him and for those of us back home with whom he shares many of his photos. Since I get to share in his explorations of the Great Lakes Region, I thought I'd share with y'all, too.
To be fare, if any of the photos I share from this series seems wonky to you, keep in mind that he took them with his iPhone while he was, you know, flying an airplane. ;) I find them interesting because to be quite honest, I never realized that these places even existed in real life.
I know. I'm so ignorant.
But here's the first in the series:
BIL labled this photo as Poverty Island, MI.
Wikipedia says: Poverty Island is a small island in the U.S. state of Michigan. The island is within Delta County in Lake Michigan and is home to the Poverty Island Light Station, an abandoned lighthouse which is in disrepair. Poverty Island is currently owned by the federal government.
I love how desolate it looks and I wonder if anyone else has had the thought that building a lighthouse on an island named "Poverty" was a bit of foreshadowing...
This trip, I think, has been particularly interesting for him and for those of us back home with whom he shares many of his photos. Since I get to share in his explorations of the Great Lakes Region, I thought I'd share with y'all, too.
To be fare, if any of the photos I share from this series seems wonky to you, keep in mind that he took them with his iPhone while he was, you know, flying an airplane. ;) I find them interesting because to be quite honest, I never realized that these places even existed in real life.
I know. I'm so ignorant.
But here's the first in the series:
BIL labled this photo as Poverty Island, MI.
Wikipedia says: Poverty Island is a small island in the U.S. state of Michigan. The island is within Delta County in Lake Michigan and is home to the Poverty Island Light Station, an abandoned lighthouse which is in disrepair. Poverty Island is currently owned by the federal government.
I love how desolate it looks and I wonder if anyone else has had the thought that building a lighthouse on an island named "Poverty" was a bit of foreshadowing...
Comments
I knew about the lakes I just didn't realize there were so many islands in them with houses and resorts and that kind of thing. I teased him about buying me an island while he's up there so I can go full-on hermit. He said he'd get right on that. ;-)
Isle Royale in Lake Michigan is a good size island that you can catch a ferry out to (or boat out to on your own), but once there you have to carry whatever you bring with you - both coming and going. Nope, no cars or bikes or any other type of transportation. I hear it's quite lovely, though.
Mackinac (Mack-i-naw - it's one of those odd French-Indian spellings) Island is also fairly big, very touristy. You take the ferry out to it, and the only transportation once on the island is horses/wagons and bikes (except emergency vehicles). Very bad if you happen to be allergic to horses. Especially if you don't know you're allergic.
My friends tell me they could smell the fudge shops (for which the island is famous) wherever we went. I, on the other hand, could only smell horse - when I could smell anything at all amidst the sniffling. Nice day trip if you're in the area, but we ended up leaving earlier than planned as I was so miserable.
Crazy thing is, I have been horseback riding a couple times and been fine. I guess when it's just a few horses it's no prob, but when it's a hundred? Sigh... Guess I'm not moving out to a ranch any time soon, LOL.
And now I feel like I need to dig out my Michigan scrapbook and share some pics from the trip friends and I took summer 1997. Wonder where that book is...?
And I agree...the government needs to sell Poverty Island. Preferably for a quarter so I can buy it and give it a nice happy name like Sunshine or Daisy. hehehe Then I could refurbish the lighthouse, claim that it's haunted and have TAPS come out to do an investigation so that I could promote tourism and make a boat load of money.
Except then I'd probably have some major anxiety attacks from all the tourists and sell the island for a nickle just to escape. :-/
Like how I wrote myself an unhappily-ever-after there? lol I'm nothing if not super positive. :-D
Of course, you can always charge those tourists for visiting and set up a gift shop to rob 'em blind while they're there.
;-D