Cute Critters

We've seen some cute, some lovely, and some eye-catching critters recently. As soon as we got into Michigan, we started to see lightening bugs. Those aren't so common farther south. When I was a kid, we used to chase and collect them in jars--until one time I fell down on a concrete driveway with my jar, which shattered. I got some nasty cuts, and after that Mom didn't seem so inclined to provide glass jars. This was (for the benefit of younger readers) before plastic jars were readily available.

Yesterday we spotted a glossy black squirrel with a reddish brown tail--quite a striking combination. My Googling seems to indicate it's not a separate species--just a color variation of the gray squirrel, but it certainly looked quite different.

We've been watching a large white swan on the little lake by our campsite. It glides majestically along, but then reaches its long white neck down and evidently finds food on the bottom. Wouldn't you just love to have to sort your dinner out from the muck?

Today we came upon a ground squirrel den with a crowd of babies. They ran down the hole when we approached, but some of them kept popping up to look at us. Curious critters! They're often looked on as varmints, but they sure are cute! (Of course it's not our lawn that they're digging up.)

We also saw a couple with two very large cats. They were carrying the cats and then set them down to walk home. They said that's the only exercise the cats get. What people won't do for their pets! It seemed to me that the cats might get more exercise if they got less food!

Our site backs up on Mirror Lake, a small lake that earns its name by being calm most of the time. Today we had possible thunderstorms in the forecast. None of them showed up, but some wind and threatening clouds passed through a few times, kicking up some waves on the little lake.

This afternoon we spent some time in the indoor pool and the hot tub. A family with a cute baby was in the pool too. Dad kept hoisting the kid up to do a slam dunk in the poolside basketball hoop, to excited giggles every time.

We got our laundry done today. There are only two washers and two dryers, so we had to put our third load in after the other two, but it wasn't really a problem. We got our exercise walk in while the machines ran.