West on Hines Drive

I've waited all winter for this kind of weather. So playing hooky two days in a row is justifiable to my way of thinking. Yesterday I drove east on Hines Drive into Dearborn Heights and visited St. Hedwig Cemetery. So I figured today would be a good day to drive west on Hines Drive and check out Newburgh Lake in Livonia. Yep, you read that right. Livonia has a lake. It's not a swimming sort of lake... it's a fishing and canoing sort of lake. Birds like it. Fish like it too. I like it because it makes for a nice driving destination on a beautiful summer day :-)

Newburgh Lake wasn't always a happy place for fish and birds. It had a really bad pollution problem a few years back. But a major restoration project was undertaken in 1997-98 and the result was a lake full of happy birds, happy fish, and presumably no pollution.

Happy birds paddle around the lake...

Happy fish swim around looking for tantalizing bait on fisherman's hooks...

Happy fisherman cast their lines into the lake...
(this is a sport I will never understand)

A pretty destination for a summer's day...

Except that's not where I was going on my journey west on Hines Drive. It was just a stop along the way. I have a special place I like to go to get away from everything. It's a place where I can park my truck and pull out my laptop and write. I never fail to feel inspired here. I can people watch, and nature watch, and soul search here. And if I crank open my sunroof and look up, this is what I see...

Cruzin tunes for today: Bruce Springstein (Born to Run), Boz Scaggs (Moments) and a wee bit more of The Doors just to get them out of my system after yesterday.

Technorati tags: Livonia, Michigan, Photos, Newburgh Lake