Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: waterfront

From SS Badger, backing into her home port.... This marvelously busy structure is Lake Michigan Carferry's docking facility at Ludington.

Explored (#51 on Wednesday, September 19, 2007). Thanks! (No longer in the top 500.)

Of course there's a beach. Lake Michigan, looking north from Jolli-Lodge . Nikon N90s, 1999.

Back in the day, Cheboygan was a major shipping port for lumber. There are remnants of old docks all over the harbor....

And clouds. But you probably noticed those.

Fine dining in Cheboygan, Michigan.

A strangely quiet factory complex on the waterfront at Kewaunee, Wisconsin. On this Monday morning there was some activity in the place, but far less than the well-maintained buildings seemed to promise.

Taken from the Kewaunee breakwater, out by the lighthouse . An interesting array of buildings; slightly active on this Monday morning.

This was the view from SS Badger as we waited to leave. The old warehouse is kinda neat, and I like the fire escapes.

Detroit's waterfront, May 28, 1990. The more I look at this photo, the better I like it. Every Memorial Day weekend, the Marine Historical Society of Detroit sponsors a tour from Detroit to Port Huron and back. The 1990 tour used both Bob Lo boats, and both were fully loaded. This photo was taken from the bow of St. Clair just as the tour began. Or mebbe from Columbia's bow. It's been a long time.... ================== Now, with both big boats inactive (I did not say retired), MHSD's tour necessarily uses smaller boats....

...this is where I want to live. Houses along the St. Clair River, Port Huron, Michigan; May of 1991. Shot this with my Chinon Genesis III from the Coast Guard wharf, which wasn't yet sealed off from the passing crowd. I'm quite pleased with this photo, despite the unfortunate graininess.

Port Huron, Michigan.

It's late afternoon at the base of Lake Huron and the sailboats are returning to the marinas. Sarnia's Flag Plaza, shot from Port Huron's. We spend yesterday watching the boats, watching the people, watching the birds, and enjoying the glorious weather. We also found our way to the Fort Gratiot Light, where it turns out there's a marvelous beach; we may well plan our next visit around that knowledge. It's a holiday weekend in both towns, as Canada Day celebrates the creation of the Dominion on July 1 in ways which resemble Independence Day on the American side.

On the sandbar/beach outside our room, last night. Joan spotted these while we were preparing to go out to her birthday dinner. Not a particularly good photo, I'm afraid, but we had other things on our minds.

At Port Huron, last fall.

We spent a couple days in Duluth, last week. This photo taken from the Vista Queen .

Manitowoc, Wisconsin, shot from SS Badger. A Photoshop (Elements) experiment.

Around the time Jackson Iron built Fayette's charcoal iron village, the British iron industry closed down its last charcoal furnace. According to the British iron masters, charcoal iron was expensive and technologically obsolete; moreover the devastation caused by the method was considered unacceptable. What was different in Michigan? In June of 1981 I was halfway through my long-delayed senior year of college, and had just turned in a senior paper which I'd originally expected to address that question. But I soon discovered: * the answer was relatively obvious, * someone had already written that paper, and * I knew that paper's author. So I'd adjusted my focus, and spent spring term examining the business infrastructure supporting mining on the Marquette Range. That, too, was inspired by Fayette. Maria Quinlan Leiby's SUNY Oneonta MA thesis " Charcoal Iron-Making at Fayette, Michigan, 1867-1890 " asked my question, and concluded that America really was different. Forests were abundant, the patent-impaired American steel industry hadn't fully taken root, environmental concerns weren't nearly so prevalent, and (most important) the engineers running America's railroads preferred charcoal iron for making rail car wheels. (Evidently coke-fired iron wheels were more prone to fracture.) Others have since argued that Fayette and its Pennsylvania competitors were advancing the technology and had grown more efficient than the abandoned British operations. Maria was (is) a bicyclist, and we'd first met at a conference some years before. We'd occasionally ridden together, and I'd worked with her husband, another bike club president, on bicycling causes. I'd known she was a state-employed historian, but hadn't known she'd studied Fayette. It was a bit of a shock, but a pleasant one. Small world. ================ A slightly-related story, posted today on a dabbler's journal .