Tag Archives: rock

246/365. herb’s bar. rock, michigan.

246/365. herb’s bar. rock, michigan.

odin’s great-grandmother, ida salmi lived in rock michigan ( population: herb’s bar through the late 60s and 1970’s. she’s since passed but her house and sauna are just around the corner and down the street. we’re lucky to have a sauna mirror that her son, odin’s grandfather, made hanging in our own sauna.

while i’ve never had a drink there, the inside of herb’s has the vibe of a a great upper peninsula dive bar in the very best sense of the phrase.

we were in rock on this particular day to watch them celebrate their 150th anniversary labor day parade.

three chimneys. the sleeping place of the gods.

three chimneys. the sleeping place of the gods.

the driftless region has a really interesting geologic history that allowed prehistoric rock formations to remain standing ( read more in “The Driftless Area: Wisconsin’s strange geology”. )

this formation is known simply as “three chimneys”. legend has it that these rocks were a sacred place to the native americans and that indian gods slept on top of the rocks.

The Mysterious Snowdeal Cairns.

The Mysterious Snowdeal Cairns.

neither kris nor i can remember when we started collecting stones during our travels. probably 20 years ago. now we have enough stones that some folks have told us they will never, ever help us move again because it was so ridiculous to move so many boxes of stones.

while some stones turn into bookends and doorstops, many of them are made into cairns that are scattered around the house and often tucked away in non-obvious places. neither of us have a particular reason for scattering cairns around the house. we just like them and i guess it’s what you do when you have an abundance of rocks laying around 🙂

this one is about 1.5 inches tall and made with stones from the UP and topped with a tiny origami crane made by the son of a longtime flickr friend ( who also happens to work at flickr ) who left it for us after a visit.

all of the cairns remind me of the stories behind the stones so maybe that’s why i enjoy them.