Marshmallow Snow

Big change from yesterday - a storm with lots of heavy, wet snow, globbing all over everything like marshmallow sauce. This is looking down Portage Avenue. The highway was awful.

The picture that didn't come out: while I was waiting for a light, four big snowplows went by in a line - followed by a little tiny pickup truck with a plow on the front. Looking very much like the little brother tagging along with the big kids!

Mural

Someone has painted a fence on Seventh Street with this cheerful and summery mural. The mural is quite long - I will have to get a better picture that includes the very appealing alligator!

Local fun

The hill next to the old hospital has been a sledding hill for generations of Three Rivers folks, and children continue the tradition today. Off Millard Street, taken from across the river - a pretty good zoom!

(After I uploaded this post, I discovered that the River Country Journal had an article about the other prime sledding location, the tubing hills at Meyer Broadway Park -"No tubing like snow tubing at Meyer Broadway Park" click to view..!)

More Lights

Lots of Christmas Trees

This stately old home, formerly owned by the "Strawberry King" R.M. Kellogg, has been beautifully restored and features several Christmas trees in its large bay windows. On Hoffman.

Santa Waves

This Santa usually is a downtown Three Rivers centerpiece, but he was supplanted this year by a large Christmas tree. So someone has wheeled him over to the park, where he stands near the old cannon, waving to the fire station across Michigan Avenue.

Douglas St.

The icy streets glisten in the afternoon sun.

Digital cameras! I've set something and now I can't figure out how to undo it. Oh no -- does this mean (gasp) I have to... read the manual???

A cold place to read

This sculpture on a downtown park bench depicts a girl reading to a young boy. A nice summery sculpture...

River Fog

Morning fog rising from the St. Joseph River rolls across 4th Street in Three Rivers.

Happy 11 11 day, for lovers of symmetry!

Main Street Morning

Early morning light on historic buildings in downtown Three Rivers , a little misty.

Halloween

This yard on Douglas Ave. has lots of spooky stuff for tonight's trick-or-treaters, including a "Day of the Dead" motorcyclist -- and a piano on the porch!

After The Storm

After a day of driving rain, much of the beautiful fall color is still on the trees - but much of it is now on the ground, too!
Looking towards downtown on Portage Ave.

More Color

More Fall color in more colors... Looking west on Bennett Street.

Fall means Color

Trees are changing color; I especially love the enormous, immense sugar maples that line the streets of Three Rivers. This one towers over the two story Victorian houses. The tree across the street is still green, perhaps puzzled by the change in its neighbor. On Ninth Street; the larger view (click) looks sunnier than the small view.

Low angle light

Dark rainclouds above, but the setting sun lights up the back of the downtown buildings (Railroad Drive).

Housework

A lovely bungalow on Portage Avenue is now decorated with scaffolding. Two men brave a drizzle to repoint the chimney.

Trading Post

Constantine Street divides into two streets, Constantine Street and South Constantine Street, with a triangular shaped grass and tree covered area between them, for about two-thirds of the block between South Street and Millard Street. (Google Maps gets this wrong--that's South Constantine to the left in the photo, and Constantine to the right.) It looks like a divided street, but is actually two streets.

The streets run along a bluff above the St. Joseph River, which is directly to the east (left, in the photo.)

At the northern pointy tip of the center area, there is a historical marker. It says:

Herabouts stood the old French trading post kept by Cassoway and Gibson, when the first white settlers came to Three Rivers in 1829. This post was probably established before the revolutionary War. The French traded with the Indians of the St. Joseph River as early as 1690.

At the bottom of the plaque it says "This tablet was erected by the Abiel Fellows Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, September 30, 1911."

Sue Stillman identifies the old trading post as being "at the confluence of the rivers".

Canal Street

Early this morning on the oddly named Canal Street, which is at the top of a hill!