Ice ice baby!

I came across an article today talking about a phenomenon called Ice Circles (seen above). I started doing some digging and found that a lot of people try to make them sound like crop circles except on the water. They say that they formed overnight and can't be explained. My research revealed that they can form overnight and can be explained. Sorry aliens, you can't claim this one. Ice circles occur when ice forms in the middle of a body of water. The water current slows around the ice and begins to shape it into a circle. Many ice circles are spinning when they are discovered. It's quite fascinating to me and I'm surprised I haven't heard of this phenomenon before today. I've attached a video of one in motion. Pretty cool.

Old man winter took a vacation!

I live in Michigan where they say if you don't like the weather, wait a minute, it'll change. Boy is that true! Today we had a high of 60, which broke the record from 1946 where we got up to 58 degrees. Our normal temperature around this time of year is 31. Since it felt like spring, I had to get to the beach and see what was going on. The picture was taken at an inlet from Lake Michigan. The water did have a nice coating of ice but the weather today broke that up. I love the sound of melting snow/ice. : ) This December has been crazy. We've had close to 50 inches of snow already (although the weather today melted most of that - whoo hoo!) and a day last week where the temp was 9! Of course the warmer weather we had today isn't lasting and we should be in the 20's tomorrow. Ugh! I seriously need to get the heck out of here by the time the next winter rolls around. I'm debating between Tennessee, Georgia and California. Who knows where I'll end up?