Here is a selection of photos we took during our trip to the midwest in May to celebrate one niece's wedding and another's graduation.

We first attended my niece Melissa Holm's wedding in Marquette. I got photos during the wedding rehearsal at the Landmark Inn. Sadly I left my camera at the motel and did not get any photos during the actual ceremony, but Melissa posted one on Facebook.


My brother Carl escorting bride-to-be Melissa during the wedding rehearsal

The bride with her mother, Ruth Ann
Carl and Melissa Holm during the wedding rehearsal.

There was light rain on the morning after the wedding, but we all enjoyed a Mother's Day breakfast together. The whole family except the newlyweds were there.

Carl Holm with his family and siblings

After I gave two astronomy talks in Iron River, Gail and I visited Grand Marais, Michigan, at the east end of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Lake Superior. The morning we were at Grand Marais was overcast, very windy, and cold. One of the attractions in tiny Grand Marais was a little cottage in the shape of a pickle barrel. It was built in the 1920s for a Chicago Tribune cartoonist who had a strip called "The Teenie Weenies" about miniature people, some of whom lived in a pickle barrel.

The pickle barrel cottage


After walking along Sable Falls stream, Gail stood
on the Lake Superior beach in the National Lakeshore
Al Holm standing at the door to a pickle barrel-shaped cottage in Grand Marais, Michigan. Gail standing in front of a small stream flowing into Lake Superior. She's bundled up against the cold wind.

Gradually the day cleared up but the wind remained strong. We visited the 300-foot-high Grand Sable Dunes. Later we hiked to the Au Sable Light Station.


The view from the Log Slide Overlook in the Grand Sable Dunes.
The Au Sable Light Station is visible in the distance.

The Au Sable Light Station
View from the Log Slide Overlook toward the Au Sable Light Station. The sky and lake are deep blue but the wind is blowing up whitecaps Gail standing in front of the Au Sable Light Station and its support buildings

Leaving Grand Marais and a little little south of it, we saw two sandhill cranes from the highway. But when we visited Bob & Lolly Bower in Shawano, Wisconsin, we found sandhill cranes that came much closer. Here is one walking in the cornfield behind a farmer's barn.

A sandhill crane with its red crest walking in a farmer's field.

While in Shawno, we helped feed the mosquitos at the Navarino Nature Center, where Bob and Lolly are volunteers.

Our next event was Niki Paton's graduation from the University of Wisconsin at River Falls.


Guy, Sherri, Troy, Gail and Niki
after dinner at a German restaurant in Hudson, Wisconsin

The Graduate
Guy, Sherri, Troy, Gail, and Niki in a dark parking lot in Hudson, WI Niki Paton holding her diploma case in front of the UW-River Falls sign

After Niki's graduation, I gave one of my astronomy talks at a condominium in St. Paul where Bill Burke, Gail's former boss, lives. Bill and Julie took us sightseeing, among other places, to Buena Vista Park, 500 feet above the town of Alma, WI, and the Mississippi River.

Bill and Julie Burke on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and the town of Alma

On the way home, I saw this silo as Gail was driving south on I-90 between Madison and the Illinois border. I just managed to get this shot before some trees came between us and it.

A barn and silo. The silo top was made to resemble a giant jack-o-lantern

We had a great time.