This past weekend I went to a men’s retreat with our church at Springhill camp in Evart, MI. When planning my drive up there, I realized that any time I drove up north, I was always on I-75. I had never really seen much of the state. So, I decided to take the non-expressway roads all the way up and hopefully get some nice fall color pics on the way. The 2.5 hour drive took my about 5 hours. During that 5 hours, I realized that there really wasn’t much of a scenic route or at least I wasn’t on it. Most of the roads that I took just had houses and power lines. I never saw much of the wide open landscape and farmland that I was expecting. There are actually much nicer views from the expressway. However, it was still a nice drive and I found a couple gems in there.
At one point I had to stop at a gas station to fill up my tires with air. This beautiful little lake was literally right next to the gas station on the side of the road:
This beautiful river scene was over a small bridge that would have easily gone unnoticed if I wasn’t specifically looking for it.
On my drive up north, it was perfect weather with low puffy clouds. I found this patch of farmland on a small side road that gave views to the open sky.
After the retreat, I had planned an extensive road trip to go up north. I planned on going up to pictured rocks. However, it was rainy, windy, and gloomy and most of the fall color was already past peak. So, I decided not to do that and instead opted to drive back home.
On my way home, I saw a sign on I-75 for Seven Lakes State Park in Holly, MI. I’ve never been there before and since I was back in the southern part of Michigan, the color in the trees was much more full. It finally stopped raining so I decided to stop. The park was quite beautiful. The color in the trees was spectacular and the dark moody skies made for some great photos.
