A trip to University of Iowa for a Big Ten conference was a long road trip for me in 2003. Since there were four of us, driving a university van was cheaper than flying everyone to Iowa City, but it did take about eight hours.
We stayed on campus at the university hotel. Contrary to my expectations, Iowa was not flat. Along the Iowa river, the university campus was hilly and green (of course there have been major floods of the river, including one a couple years ago that severely impacted the university). Other than that, it was a typical college campus.
The best thing about visiting Iowa was that I got a chance to see a friend. T had been a graduate student in political science at Michigan State and a co-worker of mine when I worked in a bookstore in East Lansing. All these years later, he'd completed not only the Ph.D in political science but a J.D. as well, and now was a professor at U Iowa. He'd asked me to bring him some Spartan gear but told me when I got there that he wished he'd asked me to bring him some Vernors as well. (Vernors is made and sold in Michigan but apparently not in Iowa.)
I met T for dinner at a Chinese restaurant near campus and then T showed me his office. We had a great conversation. That was probably the best part of the trip.
On the way back, somehow I ended up being the driver through the Chicago-Gary stretch of Interstate 80 - not recommended. I've driven that stretch several times and I always hate it. It isn't only that the traffic is heavy, always - though it is. The worst thing is that there are so many semi tractor-trailers that I always feel claustrophobic. It's very stressful.
But all in all, a good trip. Road trips with work colleagues are always fun.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tempe, Phoenix, Sedona
I had the opportunity to visit Arizona when I was asked to consult with Arizona State University on their computer systems. Even though it was business, I did get a chance to play tourist a bit as well. I flew into Tempe, which is right next to Phoenix, and spent a few days on the Arizona State U campus. It was interesting to be somewhere that it never snows - people park on the perimeter of campus and move about by golf cart.
Although I had expected sun, I managed to catch a rare pair of wet days - I would have called them showers but the folks there were amazed with the amount of rain they got. Because the ground is sun-baked, it even caused some local flooding. Yet in Michigan it would have been nothing to speak of.
As I recall, I arrived late Saturday and on Sunday, my host took us on a road trip to Sedona, a tourist town further north. It was quaint, a series of little shops that reminded me of those on Mackinac Island here in Michigan. They were filled with arts and crafts objects, souvenirs, snacks, ice cream, tapestries - etc. A lot of stuff that I didn't need and didn't want, but it was fun to shop around.
I liked the desert but it was too different for me. Not pretty but exotic, interesting to see but not somewhere I would want to live.
Although I had expected sun, I managed to catch a rare pair of wet days - I would have called them showers but the folks there were amazed with the amount of rain they got. Because the ground is sun-baked, it even caused some local flooding. Yet in Michigan it would have been nothing to speak of.
As I recall, I arrived late Saturday and on Sunday, my host took us on a road trip to Sedona, a tourist town further north. It was quaint, a series of little shops that reminded me of those on Mackinac Island here in Michigan. They were filled with arts and crafts objects, souvenirs, snacks, ice cream, tapestries - etc. A lot of stuff that I didn't need and didn't want, but it was fun to shop around.
I liked the desert but it was too different for me. Not pretty but exotic, interesting to see but not somewhere I would want to live.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
New York
I've been to NY several times - once to Niagra Falls via Buffalo, which I'll talk about in a later post, and my first time on a band tour when I was in college - also will describe later. But probably the best trip I had where I was able to be a tourist was in 2005, when I went for a conference and stayed a couple of extra days so I was able to see some of the sights in New York City.
The sister of a close friend of mine lives in Manhattan, so my friend M and I overlapped some of the trip so we were able to spend some time together with her sister MT. I was there over the 4th of July so we viewed the fireworks over the East River as a part of the trip. But the first couple of days, I was there alone. I had dinner with some professional colleagues the first night, then during the free time I had the next day, I visited Julliard to see where one of my characters went to school. I wanted to see it, and the area around it where he would live.
On the 4th, besides the evening fireworks, M and MT and I walked through Rockefeller Center, where the Today show films. We visited the NBC store nearby, then saw St. Patrick's Cathedral. That was very interesting - large and beautiful. We also saw the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations.
Next day, I was at the conference but in the evening, there was a perk for some of us - a trip to a Broadway show. We saw "The Producers" - that was fun. Although I had no idea that Broadway theatres are so small. Compared to Midwestern venues, it was tiny.
The conference wrapped up the next morning, so in the afternoon after lunch, the three of us went to Coney Island in Brooklyn. It took almost an hour on the subway. We wandered the boardwalk, had dinner, then went to a minor league baseball game - the Brooklyn Cyclones. I bought two T-shirts there that are still among my favorites.
The following day, MT had to work, so M & I visited the Museum of Modern Art. The three of us had dinner at a cozy neighborhood Italian restaurant near MT's apartment called Nochellos. The food was good and M & MT had a lot of wine.
My final day in New York, the three of us braved a cold and rainy day to take the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. We didn't disembark on Liberty but spent quite a bit of time on Ellis Island. I knew my grandparents or great grandparents had immigrated in through Ellis Island but wasn't sure exactly when. I found a couple of men named Meyer, which I knew had been our family surname before we came to America. I wish I had known more about my ancestry before I went.
Great trip, all in all.
The sister of a close friend of mine lives in Manhattan, so my friend M and I overlapped some of the trip so we were able to spend some time together with her sister MT. I was there over the 4th of July so we viewed the fireworks over the East River as a part of the trip. But the first couple of days, I was there alone. I had dinner with some professional colleagues the first night, then during the free time I had the next day, I visited Julliard to see where one of my characters went to school. I wanted to see it, and the area around it where he would live.
On the 4th, besides the evening fireworks, M and MT and I walked through Rockefeller Center, where the Today show films. We visited the NBC store nearby, then saw St. Patrick's Cathedral. That was very interesting - large and beautiful. We also saw the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and the United Nations.
Next day, I was at the conference but in the evening, there was a perk for some of us - a trip to a Broadway show. We saw "The Producers" - that was fun. Although I had no idea that Broadway theatres are so small. Compared to Midwestern venues, it was tiny.
The conference wrapped up the next morning, so in the afternoon after lunch, the three of us went to Coney Island in Brooklyn. It took almost an hour on the subway. We wandered the boardwalk, had dinner, then went to a minor league baseball game - the Brooklyn Cyclones. I bought two T-shirts there that are still among my favorites.
The following day, MT had to work, so M & I visited the Museum of Modern Art. The three of us had dinner at a cozy neighborhood Italian restaurant near MT's apartment called Nochellos. The food was good and M & MT had a lot of wine.
My final day in New York, the three of us braved a cold and rainy day to take the ferry to Liberty Island and Ellis Island. We didn't disembark on Liberty but spent quite a bit of time on Ellis Island. I knew my grandparents or great grandparents had immigrated in through Ellis Island but wasn't sure exactly when. I found a couple of men named Meyer, which I knew had been our family surname before we came to America. I wish I had known more about my ancestry before I went.
Great trip, all in all.
Denver, Breckinridge
Colorado is one of my favorite states. I like mountains. I have been lucky enough to visit Denver several times and once had a conference in the ski resort town of Breckinridge, albeit in the summer season. It was still wonderful.
My memories of Breckinridge are of taking a ski lift up to the top of the mountain - great view. I stayed in a privately-owned condo at the resort. This was the first time that I had known that this is a common practice in resorts and I was a bit stunned by the decor of the condo I got, including the massage chair, the huge bedroom, and the fully stocked kitchen. It had two full baths - which seemed excessive for one person. And two balconies.
My other memory of Breckinridge was finding an extraordinary sushi restaurant and having the sushi chef, surprise to find a somewhat knowledgable Caucasian at his sushi bar, try me out with a seaweed salad that I absolutely loved. Unfortunately, I never found it served anywhere else.
Several conferences in Denver have made me reasonably familiar with the downtown area - Larimer Square. One visit involved a dinner and wine with some colleagues, an after-dinner visit to a Russian tea room for samplings of flavored vodka, and then a beer in the hotel bar on the way to turning in. I don't think I have had that much alcohol in one session since, but it was memorable.
I also found a downtown mall where I discovered a beverage that I believe was called a Polar Bear - coffee, chocolate and milk on ice, with whipped cream and garnish of finely-ground chocolate-covered coffee beans. It was quite good.
Every time I visited Denver, I would buy and bring back a different kachina doll. I tried always to buy a new one by the same artist so they matched in size and style. 
The photo I'm attaching here isn't one of mine but is a typical sample of a Navajo kachina. Mine are tourist versions - not unique or valuable, but they are fun to have. After I had collected about six of them, I decided I really had enough. I am not a serious collector of stuff, and by that time a trip to Colorado wasn't all that exciting.
The photo I'm attaching here isn't one of mine but is a typical sample of a Navajo kachina. Mine are tourist versions - not unique or valuable, but they are fun to have. After I had collected about six of them, I decided I really had enough. I am not a serious collector of stuff, and by that time a trip to Colorado wasn't all that exciting. The final thing I will mention about Denver, though, is that I really like their airport. I have been in a lot of them but the open feeling of the main terminal in Denver is unique and I really enjoy it every time I am there.
Reno
My only visit to Nevada was a conference trip to Reno. I didn't like it, and I saw practically nothing of the city. The conference was held at a casino, and I barely left the grounds when there. Additionally, I had a diabetic episode due to the time difference and totally embarassed myself in the process. It wasn't a good trip, all in all.
With that said, I did gamble a little - slots mostly. And it wasn't a bad trip otherwise.
With that said, I did gamble a little - slots mostly. And it wasn't a bad trip otherwise.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Seattle
My travel to Washington state is limited to a single visit to Seattle, but it was a particularly good one. Again, it was for a conference, and the flight was long enough that we actually had a large plane - I don't know model numbers but it was one that has 2 seats on either side and 5 in the middle. It doesn't feel so cramped for a long flight as does a standard plane. 
In Seattle, we visited the Space Needle, saw the famous Pike Place Market, and ate in a couple of great restaurants, one of which practically hung out over the Sound. We also saw the Seattle Aquarium and took a boat trip to Tillicum Village on Blake Island, where we ate a traditional Native American meal and saw a stage show of their dances.
Seattle has wonderful coffee. Even before Starbucks won the "every coffee shop on the corner" contest, Seattle had shops all over offering Seattle's Best. At the time I visited there, so many years back, that was a new thing.
I would like to go back. I only got a glimpse of the nearby Mt Ranier and Mt St Helens from the plane (there may have been a clear day or two while there but I don't remember). I would like to see either of them from a better vantage point.
In Seattle, we visited the Space Needle, saw the famous Pike Place Market, and ate in a couple of great restaurants, one of which practically hung out over the Sound. We also saw the Seattle Aquarium and took a boat trip to Tillicum Village on Blake Island, where we ate a traditional Native American meal and saw a stage show of their dances.
Seattle has wonderful coffee. Even before Starbucks won the "every coffee shop on the corner" contest, Seattle had shops all over offering Seattle's Best. At the time I visited there, so many years back, that was a new thing.
I would like to go back. I only got a glimpse of the nearby Mt Ranier and Mt St Helens from the plane (there may have been a clear day or two while there but I don't remember). I would like to see either of them from a better vantage point.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Chicago, Evanston, Urbana-Champagne
Illinois is pretty close by, and so when I wanted a city to play in, I'd plan a trip to Chicago. I've been to many conferences there since it is a hub city that is easy to fly into. And I've visited Urbana-Champagne and Evanston as part of my tour of Big Ten universities (U of Illinois and Northwestern, respectively).
The attractions of Chicago/Evanston are twofold. One, a nice big city, lots of bookstores and restaurants and shops, combined with the comfortable familiarity of Lake Michigan from my childhood. All right, Lake Michigan is on the "wrong" side of the city from the small town where I grew up, but that doesn't matter. It's still as big and beautiful and soothing to me in Illinois as it was to me in Frankfort.
I've been to Chicago by plane, by car, and by train - the latter is actually my favorite way to arrive. I fly many places - too many, really - and after a while all flights seem the same. I don't like to drive long distances unless I have company to share the driving, and even then it seems a bit like a forced march. But on a train you can see the scenery, get a coffee, read, and there is absolutely no pressure to go faster. You don't have to worry about traffic. Someone else is responsible for getting you there, so no need for maps or triptiks or GPS announcements on where to turn. It is leisurely and I like it very much.
Once in Chicago, the El is a wonderful option for getting around, although there are numerous cabs available as well. I prefer not to drive in Chicago after one memorable trip where we were stuck on the Dan Ryan Expressway through town for several hours in 90 degree heat. Cars were overheating and dying on all sides of us and it served as a caution to me for the future.
Northwestern's campus is gorgeous - the buildings are fancy and probably reflect the fact that as a private school (the only private in the Big Ten), it is pricey. The students there do enjoy a very nice campus. Good bookstores and restaurants and shops in the area make for a very pretty college town. And a commuter train gets you back into the heart of Chicago in only a little time.
Urbana-Champagne (or sometimes, Champagne-Urbana) is the home of the University of Illinois, another Big Ten school. I don't know why the town name is sometimes one, sometimes the other way. I also admit I remember very little about the university campus or nearby area. Although we did stay at the hotel/inn on campus (almost every Big Ten school has at least one), we encountered quite a bit of rain while we were there and thus the obligatory tour of campus was obscured by viewing through rain-smeared bus windows. Nice enough, I am sure, but not memorable for me.
The attractions of Chicago/Evanston are twofold. One, a nice big city, lots of bookstores and restaurants and shops, combined with the comfortable familiarity of Lake Michigan from my childhood. All right, Lake Michigan is on the "wrong" side of the city from the small town where I grew up, but that doesn't matter. It's still as big and beautiful and soothing to me in Illinois as it was to me in Frankfort.
I've been to Chicago by plane, by car, and by train - the latter is actually my favorite way to arrive. I fly many places - too many, really - and after a while all flights seem the same. I don't like to drive long distances unless I have company to share the driving, and even then it seems a bit like a forced march. But on a train you can see the scenery, get a coffee, read, and there is absolutely no pressure to go faster. You don't have to worry about traffic. Someone else is responsible for getting you there, so no need for maps or triptiks or GPS announcements on where to turn. It is leisurely and I like it very much.
Once in Chicago, the El is a wonderful option for getting around, although there are numerous cabs available as well. I prefer not to drive in Chicago after one memorable trip where we were stuck on the Dan Ryan Expressway through town for several hours in 90 degree heat. Cars were overheating and dying on all sides of us and it served as a caution to me for the future.
Northwestern's campus is gorgeous - the buildings are fancy and probably reflect the fact that as a private school (the only private in the Big Ten), it is pricey. The students there do enjoy a very nice campus. Good bookstores and restaurants and shops in the area make for a very pretty college town. And a commuter train gets you back into the heart of Chicago in only a little time.
Urbana-Champagne (or sometimes, Champagne-Urbana) is the home of the University of Illinois, another Big Ten school. I don't know why the town name is sometimes one, sometimes the other way. I also admit I remember very little about the university campus or nearby area. Although we did stay at the hotel/inn on campus (almost every Big Ten school has at least one), we encountered quite a bit of rain while we were there and thus the obligatory tour of campus was obscured by viewing through rain-smeared bus windows. Nice enough, I am sure, but not memorable for me.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
McAllen and Brownsville
My trips to Texas, unlike almost all my other trips to other states, have been completely personal rather than business. My parents were snowbirds for about five years. They summered in Michigan and wintered in McAllen, Texas, near the Mexican border. I made three trips - two for Christmas and once for Thanksgiving. I saw both the Dallas/Fort Worth and the Houston airports on the way.
I liked McAllen very much. It's not a huge city but felt comparable to Lansing, my home town, which is a little over 100,000 people. It had a airport, so that was convenient for visits. The terrain and vegetation were alien - cypress trees dripping Spanish moss in some places, cacti in others. At Christmas, it was pleasantly warm. (My Thanksgiving visit, it was uncomfortably hot.)
My parents spent the winters with other snowbirds, mostly their own age, in a retirement park there. The cats, experience travelers, had their own tethers so they could lie on the patio and watch people walk by, or even get up and visit passersby at their whim.
My mother and I visited a small Mexican town (Hidalgo) right across the Rio Grande. It was fun - very touristy - with lots of shops selling boots, whips, blankets, hats, and jewelry. My mother did use the trips to visit the pharmacia to stock up on meds she and my stepfather used. They were very cheap, and some things requiring a prescription in the US are sold over the counter in Mexico. I don't recall that she actually smuggled them back, but I don't recall a border agent asking us either. They really only wanted to know we were citizens. Probably unfair, but since I am blue-eyed and was blondish before I went grey, I had no problem getting back in, even before I presented my Michigan driver's license.
Another trip we took was to Brownsville, on the Gulf coast, where we spent a wonderful afternoon at the Brownsville Zoo. As I have said before, I will go to a zoo anywhere, anytime. I love animals and most zoos these days try to make a reasonable accomodation to their needs in terms of space and terrain. Sometimes I regret that they have to live in captivity but I also covet zookeeper's ability to put their hands on big cats and get to know them. I want that job.
Once my parents passed away, I had no more personal reason to go to Texas and haven't been back since. It's a nice enough place, but I don't miss it either.
I liked McAllen very much. It's not a huge city but felt comparable to Lansing, my home town, which is a little over 100,000 people. It had a airport, so that was convenient for visits. The terrain and vegetation were alien - cypress trees dripping Spanish moss in some places, cacti in others. At Christmas, it was pleasantly warm. (My Thanksgiving visit, it was uncomfortably hot.)
My parents spent the winters with other snowbirds, mostly their own age, in a retirement park there. The cats, experience travelers, had their own tethers so they could lie on the patio and watch people walk by, or even get up and visit passersby at their whim.
My mother and I visited a small Mexican town (Hidalgo) right across the Rio Grande. It was fun - very touristy - with lots of shops selling boots, whips, blankets, hats, and jewelry. My mother did use the trips to visit the pharmacia to stock up on meds she and my stepfather used. They were very cheap, and some things requiring a prescription in the US are sold over the counter in Mexico. I don't recall that she actually smuggled them back, but I don't recall a border agent asking us either. They really only wanted to know we were citizens. Probably unfair, but since I am blue-eyed and was blondish before I went grey, I had no problem getting back in, even before I presented my Michigan driver's license.
Another trip we took was to Brownsville, on the Gulf coast, where we spent a wonderful afternoon at the Brownsville Zoo. As I have said before, I will go to a zoo anywhere, anytime. I love animals and most zoos these days try to make a reasonable accomodation to their needs in terms of space and terrain. Sometimes I regret that they have to live in captivity but I also covet zookeeper's ability to put their hands on big cats and get to know them. I want that job.
Once my parents passed away, I had no more personal reason to go to Texas and haven't been back since. It's a nice enough place, but I don't miss it either.
Minneapolis Times Four
The only times I have been in Minnesota, I have been in Minneapolis. Knowing nothing about the rest of the state, I have to count my four trips to Minneapolis as my experience with the state - probably not representative - but since I love the city, it's all good.All of my trips have been for conferences, three of them in the city center where the famous statue of Mary Tyler Moore tossing her hat into the air stands on a street corner. I was delighted the first time I saw it, just a block from my hotel.
Minneapolis is pretty decent in the summer and fall, but my third trip there was in January. It is cold there, windy in the canyons between the buildings, and thus the skywalks are a very nice convenience. When I was in Atlanta, I saw that they also had some skywalks, but I thought those were nice but not necessary. In Minneapolis, they definitely are needed - and when the wind chill is 20 below zero, it makes walking around the city a lot easier.
Another trip was to the University of Minnesota across the river, for a conference and tour of the campus as part of our Big Ten exchange program. Again, I have been fortunate enough to visit every Big Ten campus, and while I prefer the land grant universities with lots of grass and trees, the U of Minnesota campus is urban - but very slick and modern.
However, when all is said and done, it is just another large city. There is a nice shopping area - Nicollet Mall - downtown. And for those who really really love to shop, the Mall of America is also in Minneapolis, though a bit out of the city. I was, I admit, impressed by it. I guess the amusement park, complete with a (small) roller coaster and Ferris wheel, was the memorable part. Wow, that is a big mall. I had a couple nice meals there, and bought a souvenir Minnesota Golden Gophers hoodie there. You know a mall is big when it has to have two Starbucks within it.
I like Minneapolis and would be willing to return, but I think it might be nice some time to see the rest of the state.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Return to DC
Just got back from a long weekend in DC. This one was pure fun, and we drove, so we hit other states on the way. Pennsylvania in October is absolutely glorious. In the mountains the leaves are turning and the scenery is wonderful. I am glad I wasn't driving on that part of the trip out, because it was really worth looking at.
We arrived in DC on Friday evening after a 12-hour drive (which included time getting lost and retracing our steps), then had a meal and a drink in the hotel pub, then hit the sack to rest up for the weekend activities.
Saturday morning we spent at the National Zoo. This time I actually got to see the pandas, which on my last visit had stubbornly refused to emerge for viewing. They actually are not as big as I had imagined, as I had envisioned something about the size of a black bear. They aren't - they are more the size of a St. Bernard dog. But they are well worth seeing. The first one that came in for viewing stared at the people on the other side of the glass while rhythmically scratching his backside against a (fake) boulder. He looked pretty happy.
Of course we had to visit the big cats - tiger and lion - and the smaller ones, cheetahs that were very interested in the zoo keeper who apparently had the bucket of meat scraps for dinner. The cheetah enclosure is next to the zebras, and one cheetah kept venturning that way - he really wanted that zebra but there was no way he could get to it. This must have been an old game because the zebra just went on grazing. He would not have done that in the wild.
After the zoo, and a wonderful brunch, we got on the Metro for a trip to the Mall to see some of the monuments. We passed by the Washington Monument and spent a little time at the World War II memorial - not my favorite by a long shot - there is way too much froofraw on it. It was an important war but the iron wreaths and iron eagles and stone plinths are awfully aggressive. I wish they had done better.
The Korean War memorial is new since my last trip. That was a better one - the statues of the soldiers were solemn and sad. On a wall facing them are etchings of faces of service men and women.
Then we went to the Lincoln memorial - I had been there several times but not all of our group had, so we stayed a while there, then walked the Vietnam memorial wall to finish our tour. That one is my favorite and always is moving. Of course, Vietnam was "my" war - it ended when I was in my teens, but it was high in my consciousness for obvious reasons.
Across Constituition Avenue is the National Science Academy with a huge statue of Albert Einstein out front. He is sitting casually there - and apparently wearing Birkenstocks. Tourists were climbing up into his lap for photos, so I did too.
Then we walked north past the State Department - and quite a ways longer - onto the campus of George Washington University. Even more walking finally got us to a Metro stop, and we headed back to the area of our hotel to find a restaurant and have a drink and dinner. We had done more walking that day than I normally do in a week, so we were all ready for food and beer.
On Sunday, we all participated in the National Equality March. As with all marches, one can count on the fact that it will never start when it is supposed to. With a scheduled noon kickoff, the staging area was so full and crowded that it extended for several blocks and filled the side streets as well. We stood in the sun for over an hour before we detected movement. After about a block of marching, we were told that the front of the march had reached the Capitol Lawn, 2 miles away. Hmm. Sure seemed like there were a lot of people!
Anyway, we did make our way around the White House and down to the Capitol, listened to some speeches, then drifted off to the National Air and Space Museum for a while. Then it was on to the metro to the restaurant we had chosen the night before. Good move. We got there before the dinner rush and had another wonderful meal. I was the only one who skipped dessert, trying to be good after a weekend (so far) of eating things I probably shouldn't have - but the desserts my tablemates shared were pretty awesome, too.
Then it was back to the hotel to take our shoes off, relax, and repack for the trip home on Monday. A nice drive, good weather, but as always, it seems longer when you are going home.
We arrived in DC on Friday evening after a 12-hour drive (which included time getting lost and retracing our steps), then had a meal and a drink in the hotel pub, then hit the sack to rest up for the weekend activities.
Saturday morning we spent at the National Zoo. This time I actually got to see the pandas, which on my last visit had stubbornly refused to emerge for viewing. They actually are not as big as I had imagined, as I had envisioned something about the size of a black bear. They aren't - they are more the size of a St. Bernard dog. But they are well worth seeing. The first one that came in for viewing stared at the people on the other side of the glass while rhythmically scratching his backside against a (fake) boulder. He looked pretty happy.
Of course we had to visit the big cats - tiger and lion - and the smaller ones, cheetahs that were very interested in the zoo keeper who apparently had the bucket of meat scraps for dinner. The cheetah enclosure is next to the zebras, and one cheetah kept venturning that way - he really wanted that zebra but there was no way he could get to it. This must have been an old game because the zebra just went on grazing. He would not have done that in the wild.
After the zoo, and a wonderful brunch, we got on the Metro for a trip to the Mall to see some of the monuments. We passed by the Washington Monument and spent a little time at the World War II memorial - not my favorite by a long shot - there is way too much froofraw on it. It was an important war but the iron wreaths and iron eagles and stone plinths are awfully aggressive. I wish they had done better.
The Korean War memorial is new since my last trip. That was a better one - the statues of the soldiers were solemn and sad. On a wall facing them are etchings of faces of service men and women.
Then we went to the Lincoln memorial - I had been there several times but not all of our group had, so we stayed a while there, then walked the Vietnam memorial wall to finish our tour. That one is my favorite and always is moving. Of course, Vietnam was "my" war - it ended when I was in my teens, but it was high in my consciousness for obvious reasons.
Across Constituition Avenue is the National Science Academy with a huge statue of Albert Einstein out front. He is sitting casually there - and apparently wearing Birkenstocks. Tourists were climbing up into his lap for photos, so I did too.
Then we walked north past the State Department - and quite a ways longer - onto the campus of George Washington University. Even more walking finally got us to a Metro stop, and we headed back to the area of our hotel to find a restaurant and have a drink and dinner. We had done more walking that day than I normally do in a week, so we were all ready for food and beer.
On Sunday, we all participated in the National Equality March. As with all marches, one can count on the fact that it will never start when it is supposed to. With a scheduled noon kickoff, the staging area was so full and crowded that it extended for several blocks and filled the side streets as well. We stood in the sun for over an hour before we detected movement. After about a block of marching, we were told that the front of the march had reached the Capitol Lawn, 2 miles away. Hmm. Sure seemed like there were a lot of people!
Anyway, we did make our way around the White House and down to the Capitol, listened to some speeches, then drifted off to the National Air and Space Museum for a while. Then it was on to the metro to the restaurant we had chosen the night before. Good move. We got there before the dinner rush and had another wonderful meal. I was the only one who skipped dessert, trying to be good after a weekend (so far) of eating things I probably shouldn't have - but the desserts my tablemates shared were pretty awesome, too.
Then it was back to the hotel to take our shoes off, relax, and repack for the trip home on Monday. A nice drive, good weather, but as always, it seems longer when you are going home.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Washington, DC
As I prepare for a weekend trip to Washington, DC, I realize that I should have named this blog "Wandering Through 50.1" or some such name. DC certainly counts as a unique visiting spot, although of course it isn't a state.
My first trip to DC is probably the most memorable for me, although I have since been there on at least three other occasions. The first visit was an actual vacation, as opposed to the subsequent trips which were for business reasons, so that is the one I want to write about... I went a lot more places on that trip.
My partner and I stayed with a friend who at the time lived in the bottom floor of a brownstone just east of the Mall, only a subway stop or two away. The friend worked at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian, so of course we had to visit there on our trip. Our visit happened to occur at the same time that the museum had a Star Trek exhibit - a retrospective of the original television series. So we got to view uniforms and equipment. I have a photo of my 20-something self standing in the transporter room with cardboard cutout figures of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and another of me in the Captain's chair from the Enterprise bridge. (Not digital photos, so I don't have copies to post here.) Since we were all huge fans, it was quite a treat.
I didn't realize before visiting Washington that the Smithsonian Institution was more than just one building. To this day I don't believe I have visited them all. National Air and Space and the American History Museum were on our schedule, along with the National Zoological Park (part of the Smithsonian! Who knew?)
The American History Museum had an exhibit at the time of the internment of Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor. I find it unbelievable that I, after all my formal education, did not know that America had done this. One more reason we should applaud our museums. The exhibit was sobering, to say the least.
On the other hand, the museum also had more lighthearted displays, such as gowns of First Ladies and memorabilia from various famous television shows.
Then there are the national monuments. We ascended the Washington Monument and peered out its small windows in all four directions. I don't recommend the trip - it was pretty cramped. We saw the Capitol, of course, and the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. The one that touched me most - being from the Vietnam generation, or close to it - was the Wall. It is beautiful in its simplicity and very moving. Especially when you find a name on it that you know.
My first trip to DC is probably the most memorable for me, although I have since been there on at least three other occasions. The first visit was an actual vacation, as opposed to the subsequent trips which were for business reasons, so that is the one I want to write about... I went a lot more places on that trip.
My partner and I stayed with a friend who at the time lived in the bottom floor of a brownstone just east of the Mall, only a subway stop or two away. The friend worked at the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian, so of course we had to visit there on our trip. Our visit happened to occur at the same time that the museum had a Star Trek exhibit - a retrospective of the original television series. So we got to view uniforms and equipment. I have a photo of my 20-something self standing in the transporter room with cardboard cutout figures of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, and another of me in the Captain's chair from the Enterprise bridge. (Not digital photos, so I don't have copies to post here.) Since we were all huge fans, it was quite a treat.
I didn't realize before visiting Washington that the Smithsonian Institution was more than just one building. To this day I don't believe I have visited them all. National Air and Space and the American History Museum were on our schedule, along with the National Zoological Park (part of the Smithsonian! Who knew?)
The American History Museum had an exhibit at the time of the internment of Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor. I find it unbelievable that I, after all my formal education, did not know that America had done this. One more reason we should applaud our museums. The exhibit was sobering, to say the least.
On the other hand, the museum also had more lighthearted displays, such as gowns of First Ladies and memorabilia from various famous television shows.
Then there are the national monuments. We ascended the Washington Monument and peered out its small windows in all four directions. I don't recommend the trip - it was pretty cramped. We saw the Capitol, of course, and the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. The one that touched me most - being from the Vietnam generation, or close to it - was the Wall. It is beautiful in its simplicity and very moving. Especially when you find a name on it that you know.
I learned to eat sushi in DC. Before my first visit, I had never tried it and honestly didn't think I would care for it. On the other hand, it was before the current trend of sushi restaurants practically on every corner.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Kansas City
One of my first road trips as a naive twenty-something was a cross-state drive to Kansas City for the World Science Fiction Convention in 1976. I had the experience of hearing one of my favorite SF authors, Robert Heinlein, speak in person. Since I had discovered his novels in junior high, I was especially excited by the prospect.
With my partner and several friends, we also had delusions of grandeur in thinking we could launch our new SF magazine at the convention. That didn't work so well and had a lot to do with me categorizing myself as naive. We didn't know about fanzines until we got there and the business portion of the venture was a complete and utter failure. But I had a good time otherwise and it wasn't the last time I would go to a SF convention.
I met Spider Robinson there before he was well known - and he also became one of my favorite authors. But more about the experience was simply the challenges of the trip - long, late night driving across Indiana and Illinois, my first glimpse of the Mississippi River as we crossed into Missouri, and a short visit to the Kansas side of KC for dinner one night. We slept six in one room and it was chaotic, but we were all pretty much broke. It was sort of like summer camp without the evening campfire.
The only other memory I have of the trip was the unusual sight of traffic lights on poles at the streetcorners instead of being suspended from overhead lines in the middle of the intersections. Downtown KC was the first time I had seen this variation and it made for some tentative driving.
With my partner and several friends, we also had delusions of grandeur in thinking we could launch our new SF magazine at the convention. That didn't work so well and had a lot to do with me categorizing myself as naive. We didn't know about fanzines until we got there and the business portion of the venture was a complete and utter failure. But I had a good time otherwise and it wasn't the last time I would go to a SF convention.
I met Spider Robinson there before he was well known - and he also became one of my favorite authors. But more about the experience was simply the challenges of the trip - long, late night driving across Indiana and Illinois, my first glimpse of the Mississippi River as we crossed into Missouri, and a short visit to the Kansas side of KC for dinner one night. We slept six in one room and it was chaotic, but we were all pretty much broke. It was sort of like summer camp without the evening campfire.
The only other memory I have of the trip was the unusual sight of traffic lights on poles at the streetcorners instead of being suspended from overhead lines in the middle of the intersections. Downtown KC was the first time I had seen this variation and it made for some tentative driving.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Boston
The first and only time I have been in Massachusetts was a conference trip to Boston in 1990. I had just joined a software project team and we went to Boston for a software users group conference. But I did have the opportunity to see the city, and it was the first major business trip I had made so it was all a big new adventure for me.
I hadn't been in a very old east coast city before and was amazed and pleased to see what the old part of town looked like - cobblestone streets too narrow for two people walking side by side, the scent of the sea in the harbor - the tall, masted ships. I love the old houses, the brownstones on Beacon Hill. I hadn't seen a real city part until Boston Common. And I hadn't ridden a subway until the T in Boston.
This was also where my practice of visiting museums began. I found I liked them very much and made a habit of seeing one whenever I could from then on.
I had written a novel in which a character attended Harvard and Harvard Medical School, so I took the subway to Cambridge to look over the Harvard campus, and was surprised that Harvard Medical School was not near Harvard but in a different part of the city all together. So I wandered around, gathering background for my novel and taking plenty of photos.
Boston is famous for its seafood and its pubs. I tried both, repeatedly, and enjoyed it. I love fresh seafood and found several great restaurants there. It was also my first experience with Au Bon Pain, a croissant and coffee shop where I had several breakfasts.
I enjoyed Boston but in retrospect, having visited several large cities since, it wasn't remarkable and it wouldn't matter to me if I never returned.
I hadn't been in a very old east coast city before and was amazed and pleased to see what the old part of town looked like - cobblestone streets too narrow for two people walking side by side, the scent of the sea in the harbor - the tall, masted ships. I love the old houses, the brownstones on Beacon Hill. I hadn't seen a real city part until Boston Common. And I hadn't ridden a subway until the T in Boston.
This was also where my practice of visiting museums began. I found I liked them very much and made a habit of seeing one whenever I could from then on.
I had written a novel in which a character attended Harvard and Harvard Medical School, so I took the subway to Cambridge to look over the Harvard campus, and was surprised that Harvard Medical School was not near Harvard but in a different part of the city all together. So I wandered around, gathering background for my novel and taking plenty of photos.
Boston is famous for its seafood and its pubs. I tried both, repeatedly, and enjoyed it. I love fresh seafood and found several great restaurants there. It was also my first experience with Au Bon Pain, a croissant and coffee shop where I had several breakfasts.
I enjoyed Boston but in retrospect, having visited several large cities since, it wasn't remarkable and it wouldn't matter to me if I never returned.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Driving to Florida
In 1986 my partner and I took a Florida vacation. We transported a car and flew back, staying at a Gulf-side beachfront condo while there.
We left after work on a Friday, driving as far as mid-Ohio the first evening before finding a hotel to stop for the night. The next day we drove from Lima, Ohio, into Kentucky before stopping for lunch in Covington. It was interesting to get into Kentucky, this first time in visiting the state for me, and immediately running into a different geography - steeply pitched hills - and cultrual and language differences - car license plates are "tags", and pop is "soda". And the accent becomes obvious. (Of course, we midwesterners think we are the only people without accents - I am sure that is a universal belief.)
It was amusing to see signs on bridges saying "Bridge may ice in cold weather". To northern midwesterners, this was stating the obvious, but apparently Kentuckians have to be warned. We found the "Falling Rock Zone" signs more interesting - not something one worries about in Michigan, but a good thing to think about in the mountains.
We made it through both Kentucky and Tennessee that day, stopping for the night in Chattanooga, TN, a stone's throw from the Tennessee-Georgia state line. I would say that this was the prettiest day of the trip and probably the most memorable for me just for the scenery.
We left Chattanooga on day three and stopped for breakfast once we got into Georgia, at a place called Waffle House. These are common off the freeways in Georgia and northern Florida and are good old southern cooking in a diner setting. When we walked in, everyone yelled "Good Morning!" - the waitresses, the fry cooks - which was off-putting for us. And we had new things - grits, which I found I liked very much, and raisin toast with cinnamon apple butter. Good stuff.
The soil as we drove through Georgia was reddish-brown, and so, oddly, was the asphalt. And this was the first time I witnessed a person driving with a paperback book propped on his steering wheel. Hmm. These days people talk or text on cell phones while driving, but I had never seen anyone reading a book while driving. Fortunately I haven't seen it often again.
We drove straight through Georgia and stopped in Valdosta for an early dinner. We didn't pick a good restaurant and it was obviously too early for dinner as far as the staff were concerned, so we didn't get very good service. We were the only customers in the place.
We finished the drive to the condo in the Tampa/St. Pete area and arrived about 9:30 pm. Late dinner that night was from 7-11.
The condo was in the Gulf Beaches, a stip of land which wraps around the coastline, about wide enough for a street with buildings on either side of it. Quite unusual.
The condo itself was beautiful, though rather obviously done by a decorator, Everything was in a motif of sea shells and wicker and palm trees. There were sea shell soaps in a shell-shaped soap dish in the bath, sea shell covers over the night lights, a conch shell on the refridgerator, a sand dollar on the coffeemaker. Shell prints on the sheets and on the wallpaper - well, okay, it was a beachfront condo overlooking the gulf. But it was nice - two bedrooms, two baths, a balcony off the living room and master bedroom that faced the gulf. We went to bed that night with the balcony doors open so we could hear the sounds of the ocean waves on the shore - low 60s with a breeze. Nice way to spend a December vacation.
What we did over the next few days was relaxing and fairly typical. We shopped, cooked and ate a lot of seafood, and spent time on the beach (my first experience with salt water swimming). Beach sand in Florida is like talcum, not like sand on the Great Lakes which results from rocks ground down by glaciers. In Florida, it feels like the sand has come from shell and coral. It has a completely different texture.
We picked up a lot of shells to clean and take home with us. When we left them on the kitchen counter before washing, a couple of them moved! That was startling. Of course the shells were homes to hermit crabs. We returned the occupied ones to the beach.
Two days we spent at Disney World. At this time, Magic Kingdom and Epcot were the only theme parks they had - at least, those were the ones we visited. The first day we did Magic Kingdom, which resembled any theme park. (The one we knew best was Cedar Point, which we had both visited in Ohio previously.) At that point in my life, I was a big roller coaster fan (I still am but since my spinal surgery, it's not a good idea). Anyway, we did Space Mountain which was the first time I had ridden an indoor coaster. It's a very different experience and not one I really liked - I would rather see what's coming as part of the fun. We also tried the coaster in Frontierland, which was great. Waterfalls, good hills. Still, Magic Kingdom was just another theme park really, not bad but not great.
The second day we spent at Epcot. That was a new experience for us. We hadn't done this before, where you ride through the exhibits and things move and talk to you and make sounds. That was really interesting. My favorite was Journey Into Imagination, about art and creativity. Also good was Horizons, showing imagined future living in an urban home, a desert farm home, and an undersea home. Spaceship Earth traced the history of communication, and The World of Motion did transportation. Another favorite was The Living Seas, a trip to "Sea Base Alpha" where you pass by huge aquarium tanks that have sharks, dolphins, rays, corals, aneomes, and more. Beautiful.
The second part of Epcot had areas of various nations, but we never made it that far. The front part used up our whole day and we were satisfied with that.
We spent three more days at the condo before flying home on Monday. We had arranged for a cab to the Tampa airport. It was an odd airport at the time - very dark and gloomy. Also, I found it interesting, when I went looking for a pack of gum to help with the air pressure in my ears on the flight, that it was an airport policy at the time not to sell chewing gum. I thought that was really wierd.
It was an excellent trip, and has made it onto my list of ideal vacations - sitting on the beach. Again, I have not repeated the vacation, although I did get to Orlando recently for a conference at Disney World. But that didn't involve any beach sitting.
We left after work on a Friday, driving as far as mid-Ohio the first evening before finding a hotel to stop for the night. The next day we drove from Lima, Ohio, into Kentucky before stopping for lunch in Covington. It was interesting to get into Kentucky, this first time in visiting the state for me, and immediately running into a different geography - steeply pitched hills - and cultrual and language differences - car license plates are "tags", and pop is "soda". And the accent becomes obvious. (Of course, we midwesterners think we are the only people without accents - I am sure that is a universal belief.)
It was amusing to see signs on bridges saying "Bridge may ice in cold weather". To northern midwesterners, this was stating the obvious, but apparently Kentuckians have to be warned. We found the "Falling Rock Zone" signs more interesting - not something one worries about in Michigan, but a good thing to think about in the mountains.
We made it through both Kentucky and Tennessee that day, stopping for the night in Chattanooga, TN, a stone's throw from the Tennessee-Georgia state line. I would say that this was the prettiest day of the trip and probably the most memorable for me just for the scenery.
We left Chattanooga on day three and stopped for breakfast once we got into Georgia, at a place called Waffle House. These are common off the freeways in Georgia and northern Florida and are good old southern cooking in a diner setting. When we walked in, everyone yelled "Good Morning!" - the waitresses, the fry cooks - which was off-putting for us. And we had new things - grits, which I found I liked very much, and raisin toast with cinnamon apple butter. Good stuff.
The soil as we drove through Georgia was reddish-brown, and so, oddly, was the asphalt. And this was the first time I witnessed a person driving with a paperback book propped on his steering wheel. Hmm. These days people talk or text on cell phones while driving, but I had never seen anyone reading a book while driving. Fortunately I haven't seen it often again.
We drove straight through Georgia and stopped in Valdosta for an early dinner. We didn't pick a good restaurant and it was obviously too early for dinner as far as the staff were concerned, so we didn't get very good service. We were the only customers in the place.
We finished the drive to the condo in the Tampa/St. Pete area and arrived about 9:30 pm. Late dinner that night was from 7-11.
The condo was in the Gulf Beaches, a stip of land which wraps around the coastline, about wide enough for a street with buildings on either side of it. Quite unusual.
The condo itself was beautiful, though rather obviously done by a decorator, Everything was in a motif of sea shells and wicker and palm trees. There were sea shell soaps in a shell-shaped soap dish in the bath, sea shell covers over the night lights, a conch shell on the refridgerator, a sand dollar on the coffeemaker. Shell prints on the sheets and on the wallpaper - well, okay, it was a beachfront condo overlooking the gulf. But it was nice - two bedrooms, two baths, a balcony off the living room and master bedroom that faced the gulf. We went to bed that night with the balcony doors open so we could hear the sounds of the ocean waves on the shore - low 60s with a breeze. Nice way to spend a December vacation.
What we did over the next few days was relaxing and fairly typical. We shopped, cooked and ate a lot of seafood, and spent time on the beach (my first experience with salt water swimming). Beach sand in Florida is like talcum, not like sand on the Great Lakes which results from rocks ground down by glaciers. In Florida, it feels like the sand has come from shell and coral. It has a completely different texture.
We picked up a lot of shells to clean and take home with us. When we left them on the kitchen counter before washing, a couple of them moved! That was startling. Of course the shells were homes to hermit crabs. We returned the occupied ones to the beach.
Two days we spent at Disney World. At this time, Magic Kingdom and Epcot were the only theme parks they had - at least, those were the ones we visited. The first day we did Magic Kingdom, which resembled any theme park. (The one we knew best was Cedar Point, which we had both visited in Ohio previously.) At that point in my life, I was a big roller coaster fan (I still am but since my spinal surgery, it's not a good idea). Anyway, we did Space Mountain which was the first time I had ridden an indoor coaster. It's a very different experience and not one I really liked - I would rather see what's coming as part of the fun. We also tried the coaster in Frontierland, which was great. Waterfalls, good hills. Still, Magic Kingdom was just another theme park really, not bad but not great.
The second day we spent at Epcot. That was a new experience for us. We hadn't done this before, where you ride through the exhibits and things move and talk to you and make sounds. That was really interesting. My favorite was Journey Into Imagination, about art and creativity. Also good was Horizons, showing imagined future living in an urban home, a desert farm home, and an undersea home. Spaceship Earth traced the history of communication, and The World of Motion did transportation. Another favorite was The Living Seas, a trip to "Sea Base Alpha" where you pass by huge aquarium tanks that have sharks, dolphins, rays, corals, aneomes, and more. Beautiful.
The second part of Epcot had areas of various nations, but we never made it that far. The front part used up our whole day and we were satisfied with that.
We spent three more days at the condo before flying home on Monday. We had arranged for a cab to the Tampa airport. It was an odd airport at the time - very dark and gloomy. Also, I found it interesting, when I went looking for a pack of gum to help with the air pressure in my ears on the flight, that it was an airport policy at the time not to sell chewing gum. I thought that was really wierd.
It was an excellent trip, and has made it onto my list of ideal vacations - sitting on the beach. Again, I have not repeated the vacation, although I did get to Orlando recently for a conference at Disney World. But that didn't involve any beach sitting.
San Francisco
My first real tip on my own was to San Francisco. I went with my partner of the time, and not being experienced travelers, we stumbled our way through the whole experience. We had no idea what we were doing but ended up having a good time anyway.
We drove to Chicago, where we spent the night before our flight and where we could leave our car while we were gone. From Chicago, we flew to Dallas/Fort Worth and connected from there to San Francisco. I could have counted this as my first visit to Texas since I touched ground, but just experiencing an airport doesn't count as a "significant event".
As a part of the travel package, we had a rental car for our first day only. So when we landed, we went to get the car and drove first to our hotel, then around the city to sightsee. We went to Golden Gate park the first day, and through the neighborhoods to see the townhouses. It is interesting to view how houses are built on very steep streets, because to make level floors, one side of the house will have a foundation several feet taller than the other side. It's also extraordinary to a Midwesterner's viewpoint to see how brightly-colored the houses are.
Another small but telling difference is that we never saw a rusty car. In the Midwest, winter road salt takes its toll, but in San Francisco that isn't needed, so the cars last a lot longer and are in more pristine condition.
After visiting Golden Gate Park, we drove to Fisherman's Wharf and did some strolling. We didn't know much about the city so generally we were looking to visit the well-known tourist spots. After the first day, when we had to return the car, we did a lot of moving around via cable car. Or by bus when we wanted to go places that the cable cars didn't go there.
We did walk Lombard Street, a famous street that curves back and forth as it goes downhill. It is lovely but one can't imagine driving down it except at a crawl. It is a series of hairpin turns with flowerbeds on each side of the street and in the photo, you can see the flowerbeds better than the street itself, but the cars are telltale.
One thing that was educational to us was the variety of foods and the demographic mix of peoples. At that time, we had few Asians in our home city, but in San Francisco, there were large populations of Chinese, Japanese, and other Asians - and the markets and restaurants supporting their tastes. My partner and I enjoyed Chinese food, so we spent a great deal of time in Chinatown. It was our first experience with dim sum. And, as keepsakes, we each bought Chinese silk bathrobes. Mine was green with gold embroidery, and I have it still.
The other tourist experience I most enjoyed was the visit to Alcatraz. At that time, with Alcatraz a national park site rather than a prison island, one could buy a ticket on the ferry that brought tourists over several times a day, and a park ranger would conduct a tour. Some parts of the prison are familiar if you have ever seen a movie set in a prison, especially the main cell block, with tiers of cells and guard posts at each end, and the prison yard and mess hall. I was impressed with the solitary cells, with no windows, three-inch thick doors, nothing except a sink and toilet - no beds. The park ranger told us that an inmate in solitary might or might not even be allowed to have his clothes, depending upon the circumstances. The rooms were dank and cold, so it wouldn't be comfortable, to say the least. But we were told that Alcatraz made no attempt to rehabilitate prisoners. The purpose was simply to isolate and control.
We spent four days in San Francisco - not long enough to see everything but a good first visit. I always wish I had more time and I always plan to return to a place I liked. But it is 24 years later and I have not yet been back to California.
We drove to Chicago, where we spent the night before our flight and where we could leave our car while we were gone. From Chicago, we flew to Dallas/Fort Worth and connected from there to San Francisco. I could have counted this as my first visit to Texas since I touched ground, but just experiencing an airport doesn't count as a "significant event".
As a part of the travel package, we had a rental car for our first day only. So when we landed, we went to get the car and drove first to our hotel, then around the city to sightsee. We went to Golden Gate park the first day, and through the neighborhoods to see the townhouses. It is interesting to view how houses are built on very steep streets, because to make level floors, one side of the house will have a foundation several feet taller than the other side. It's also extraordinary to a Midwesterner's viewpoint to see how brightly-colored the houses are.
Another small but telling difference is that we never saw a rusty car. In the Midwest, winter road salt takes its toll, but in San Francisco that isn't needed, so the cars last a lot longer and are in more pristine condition.
After visiting Golden Gate Park, we drove to Fisherman's Wharf and did some strolling. We didn't know much about the city so generally we were looking to visit the well-known tourist spots. After the first day, when we had to return the car, we did a lot of moving around via cable car. Or by bus when we wanted to go places that the cable cars didn't go there.
We did walk Lombard Street, a famous street that curves back and forth as it goes downhill. It is lovely but one can't imagine driving down it except at a crawl. It is a series of hairpin turns with flowerbeds on each side of the street and in the photo, you can see the flowerbeds better than the street itself, but the cars are telltale.
One thing that was educational to us was the variety of foods and the demographic mix of peoples. At that time, we had few Asians in our home city, but in San Francisco, there were large populations of Chinese, Japanese, and other Asians - and the markets and restaurants supporting their tastes. My partner and I enjoyed Chinese food, so we spent a great deal of time in Chinatown. It was our first experience with dim sum. And, as keepsakes, we each bought Chinese silk bathrobes. Mine was green with gold embroidery, and I have it still.
The other tourist experience I most enjoyed was the visit to Alcatraz. At that time, with Alcatraz a national park site rather than a prison island, one could buy a ticket on the ferry that brought tourists over several times a day, and a park ranger would conduct a tour. Some parts of the prison are familiar if you have ever seen a movie set in a prison, especially the main cell block, with tiers of cells and guard posts at each end, and the prison yard and mess hall. I was impressed with the solitary cells, with no windows, three-inch thick doors, nothing except a sink and toilet - no beds. The park ranger told us that an inmate in solitary might or might not even be allowed to have his clothes, depending upon the circumstances. The rooms were dank and cold, so it wouldn't be comfortable, to say the least. But we were told that Alcatraz made no attempt to rehabilitate prisoners. The purpose was simply to isolate and control.
We spent four days in San Francisco - not long enough to see everything but a good first visit. I always wish I had more time and I always plan to return to a place I liked. But it is 24 years later and I have not yet been back to California.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
"Superior"
Those not living in or near Michigan may not know that some who live in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan occasionally venture that they would like to be their own state, and they would call it "Superior". Michigan is unique in that it has two distinct land masses as a part of the state, with a beautiful, 5-mile long suspension bridge connecting the two parts. The Mackinac Bridge (pronounced "mack-in-naw") was constructed in 1957 after many years of attempting to get the project started. Apparently the ferry services, adequate in summer, weren't all that reliable in winter when the Straits of Mackinac iced over.Although I have lived in Michigan all my life, and visited Mackinac Island twice (it is located just off the Straits nearer to the Upper Penninsula than the Lower), I hadn't actually explored the UP until 1994. 
Once across the bridge, there are several destinations of interest. Almost directly north, the top of the UP almost touches Canada at Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced "Soo Saint Marie") which is also called just "The Soo". There are the famous locks that allow large ships to move from Lake Superior to Lake Huron and vice versa. Nearby is the Anchor Bar, where you can have a burger and a beer and look at trash and treasures covering every wall, from old license plates to stuffed deer heads, street signs, traffic lights, etc.
Watching a ship move through the locks is a slow but completely fascinating process, as the locks are barely wider than the ships that pass through them. The ship stops, the rear gates close, and then the water is pumped in to raise the ship, or out to lower it. It is fun to see the ship slowly rise or fall as the water fills or empties the chamber.
Then, later, we went to see the famous Taquamenon Falls. The upper falls drop 50 feet and the falls are over 200 feet across. The water looks rusty brown due to the iron content, but it still foams white at the foot. 
The lower falls are not as tall but still are worth seeing.
The lower falls are not as tall but still are worth seeing.But the Taquamenon are only two of the many waterfalls in the UP. They are the "Niagras" of Michigan, but all over the UP you can park and hike along a trail, sometimes going carefully down wooden stairs with a wooden railing, or a wood-paved walkway deep into the woods. You will hear the water before you see it, but then, suddenly, there it will be. Some are barely a foot wide, others are quite large. The one I remember the best, although I didn't take a picture, was in a very green woods, curved toward us like a half a glass, and some parts fell ten feet to a rock ledge, boiled, and fell again in numerous cascades, while other parts fell freely fifty feet or more.
One more attraction that we saw that was memorable was the Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior. It requires you board a boat at the town of Munising, and even in July the wind on the lake is very cold. But the view of the carved and colored rock formations is breathtaking.
Almost as numerous as waterfalls are lighthouses on the Lake Superior shoreline. Some of them are very old and have been preserved as state or national historical sites. Some of them have houses attached, where the lightkeepers lived. Now most of them are museums or visitors' centers. One could spend many days looking at lighthouses.
Our trip to the Upper Penninsula took place in high summer, so we did get the benefit of good weather and easy driving, sunny days, and were able to spend a lot of our time outdoors. It made for a grand trip overall.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
The License Plate Game
Summer is the construction season in Michigan, and to while away my time while I am stuck in traffic, I've been playing the license plate game. In the last weeks of August, as the students begin to return to East Lansing for another school year, I am seeing out of state plates that reminds me that we have students from every state in the US attending Michigan State University, and reminds me again about my goal to see them all. 
In the three weeks starting the school year, I have seen plates from Idaho, Florida, Texas, Colorado, and New Jersey (day one); Maryland, California, and Minnesota on day two; Indiana, Montana, Illinois, Virginia, Utah, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Ohio, Nevada, and Pennsylvania (days three through twelve).
I have been in perhaps half of these. It makes me want to get in the car and just go - there is so much more to see than I have seen!
(I especially like the plates from the mountain west such as Nevada's -- I grew up with water but I find mountains equally fascinating. )
Growing up "Pure Michigan"
I went downstate to college, as most upstaters do. It may be hard to fathom, but one could draw a line, east to west, through the middle of Michigan's mitten, and it would be true that 90% of the population and the colleges are south of that line. Northern lower Michigan and the Upper Penninsula are very rural areas, sparsely populated, good vacation spots and wonderful places to raise children, but it is also the case that there isn't much there. It is hard to find work and one needs to drive tens of miles to do any major shopping.
After college, I moved to Lansing and have lived in the area around the Capitol City ever since.
It is said that there are only three places to work in Lansing - state government, the auto industry, or at Michigan State University in neighboring East Lansing. Both state government and the auto industry have struggled in recent years, but I was fortunate to choose to work at Michigan State, so I have a secure job and, not incidentally, it has afforded me the opportunity to visit and cross off a number of the fifty states. More on that follows, of course, but attending conferences has taken me to many places in representing the university that I probably never would have seen in another line of work. It has enhanced my taste for travel far beyond what I would have been able to do on my own.
Lansing is a good place to live. A city of around 100,000, it is large enough that you can get a pizza delivered or find a video to rent within a mile of work or home, with three major malls to shop - no more driving fifty miles to buy bulk food or pick out a new refridgerator - and there are even international selections in restaurants due to the large international population drawn by the university. I find I like having the choice of twelve Chinese restaurants, another half-dozen sushi bars, Greek pizza, Italian and Mexican and Middle Eastern choices in abundance. Okay, I only know of one Thai place - but I am not that fond of Thai food so it's a matter of indifference to me.
Working on the campus of Michigan State University is a delight, every single day. It is one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever seen. On my drive to work, I pass the horse farm where mares and their foals graze in the spring. Then I pass between two golf courses and work my way past south campus, with their modern buildings, to the best part of the campus, North Campus, where the old architecture rules.
Out of my window, I can see a garden with a fountain and a classroom building with gables and brick. An example can be seen at the left.
Lansing and its near neighbor communities have a lot to offer and I have been content to live here for more than 30 years. It's a wonderful jumping-off point, at the center of the mitten, and from here I have launched myself on many travels which I will journal here in later postings.
After college, I moved to Lansing and have lived in the area around the Capitol City ever since.
It is said that there are only three places to work in Lansing - state government, the auto industry, or at Michigan State University in neighboring East Lansing. Both state government and the auto industry have struggled in recent years, but I was fortunate to choose to work at Michigan State, so I have a secure job and, not incidentally, it has afforded me the opportunity to visit and cross off a number of the fifty states. More on that follows, of course, but attending conferences has taken me to many places in representing the university that I probably never would have seen in another line of work. It has enhanced my taste for travel far beyond what I would have been able to do on my own.Lansing is a good place to live. A city of around 100,000, it is large enough that you can get a pizza delivered or find a video to rent within a mile of work or home, with three major malls to shop - no more driving fifty miles to buy bulk food or pick out a new refridgerator - and there are even international selections in restaurants due to the large international population drawn by the university. I find I like having the choice of twelve Chinese restaurants, another half-dozen sushi bars, Greek pizza, Italian and Mexican and Middle Eastern choices in abundance. Okay, I only know of one Thai place - but I am not that fond of Thai food so it's a matter of indifference to me.
Working on the campus of Michigan State University is a delight, every single day. It is one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever seen. On my drive to work, I pass the horse farm where mares and their foals graze in the spring. Then I pass between two golf courses and work my way past south campus, with their modern buildings, to the best part of the campus, North Campus, where the old architecture rules.
Out of my window, I can see a garden with a fountain and a classroom building with gables and brick. An example can be seen at the left.
Lansing and its near neighbor communities have a lot to offer and I have been content to live here for more than 30 years. It's a wonderful jumping-off point, at the center of the mitten, and from here I have launched myself on many travels which I will journal here in later postings.
Born in Michigan
Michigan is my first state of the 50, since I was born here and have lived here my entire life. But I have had many homes in Michigan, in several cities and towns, and have traveled extensively through the state as well. I've had sixteen addresses in six cities and towns in Michigan, starting with in Harper Woods, a Detroit suburb, where I lived the first seven years of my life. I was actually born in the city of Detroit (the hospital was located there).
At the age of seven, I moved to Frankfort, a small town in northern Lower Michigan located on the Lake Michigan shoreline. The photo at right shows the archway over highway M-115 as you enter the town. It always made me feel like I was coming home to see the gateway, even years after I no longer lived there.
I think I learned to love the water while I lived in Frankfort. Whenever I was having a bout of teenage angst, I would go out and walk the lake shore. It was incredibly soothing - quiet and beautiful, even in the winter, and allowed the silence and solitude I needed to think things through.
The cry of the lighthouse on foggy mornings and the low bellowing of the car ferries as they prepared to voyage to Wisconsin were the background music of my life there. It was a great place to grow up.
Of course, things didn't last. My mother remarried when I was about fourteen, and for a short while - about nine months to a year - I was relocated to a suburb of Grand Rapids. I didn't think much of it either way - it was another city, not unlike Harper Woods, and I knew we were planning to return to Frankfort eventually so I didn't invest much in the city. These days, I enjoy. Grand Rapids and often visit there, but at the time it meant very little to me.
Next up - college and beyond
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