Las Vegas

A business trip to Las Vegas in July was my first time in that city, although not my first visit to the state of Nevada.  It was hot, of course, with temps in the 100s throughout the visit, but most of the strip is a series of well-air-conditioned hotel/casinos, so one can walk with relief always nearby.  An interesting innovation is that outdoor dining and drinking patios are often surrounded by waist-high railings with sprinklers attached.  They continuously spray a fine mist into the air to cool the patrons nearby.

It is a culture shock to walk down the Las Vegas strip and see things you would not see in any other major US city.  Walk-up bars, where you can take one "to go" -- I drank a beer on the sidewalk as I walked but I felt extremely self-conscious, as if someone would stop me at any second. 

Another rare sight were the men handing out flyers on the street corners, wearing T-shirts with the legends - "Girls sent to your room in 20 minutes" followed by the phone number.  Seriously.  This is commercialized in Vegas.

On the other hand, they are not shy about routing you through casinos to get anywhere else.  Overhead walkways are accessed by escalators or elevators, but those are inside the building on that corner, nine times out of ten, and to get to them, you have to walk through a casino.  When checking in to our hotel, we had to then haul our suitcases through about one-third of the casino in order to get to the guest elevators.  There was no other way to do it.

Did I gamble?  Yes, a bit,  although I am strictly a slot machine person.  I don't play table games - they are much too expensive for me.

The other attractions of Vegas, besides scenery, are shows.  The one I saw at my hotel was called Zarkana.  It was a Cirque du Soleil show which are very popular now, combining acting with acrobatics for an interesting show.  In Zarkana, one performeer was wired, at one point, to soar out over the first twenty rows of the audience.  It was definitely worth seeing, although again the experience is VERY EXPENSIVE to my little tightfisted mode of thinking (ranging from $170 to $108 depending upon location in the theatre).  But this was probably my only visit to Las Vegas and so I considered it a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  And spent accordingly.

I wish I had had the time and means to have gotten out of town.  I saw desert and mountains during landing and takeoff at the airport.  I also realized that the Grand Canyon was not that far away, and if I had gotten a rental car, I would have enjoyed a day outside of the glitz and glitter.  Not this time, however.

Champagne-Urbana (or Urbana-Champagne)

I took a small trip to the University of Illinois earlier in October.  This was my annual Big Ten trip (last year, as you may recall, I was to make my first visit to Nebraska but my flight was canceled due to a snow storm). 

I had been at U of Illinois before, but this time I found out the reason that the city calls itself Champagne-Urbana but the univerisity is said to be in Urbana-Champagne.  The university straddles the two cities which are separated by Wright Street, but the home of the university president is in Urbana, which gives it the precendence, apparently.

Anyway, it is a nice city, we had some nice meals, and it was a good trip.  Even the drive - which skirts Gary and I have made meny times, always in terror, surrounded by semi trucks -- was not as bad as it has been for me in the past.

The "Amazing Race" Tour

I don't watch the Amazing Race, but one of my colleagues put that tag on this trip - three cities and four airlines in seven days - a real whilrlind tour.  Traveling like this is neither as bad as I feared nor as good as it could have been, but I survived and we learned a lot.

With four of my colleagues from the university where I work, we set up visits to three other schools to talk with them about their student computer systems.  We were able to set up all the visits for the same week.  So, on Sunday we set out from Detroit (after a two-hour drive to the airport) and flew non-stop to Seattle, Washington for our first visit.  Due to the time difference, the five hour flight deposited us at 2pm PDT, or apparently two hours after we left Michigan.

After finding our hotel and a quick check-in to leave our luggage in our rooms, we met in the lobby for a walk about the hotel and into the campus proper. 

The University of Washington is a traditional campus with lovely buildings.  The center feature of the campus is a massive fountain (right).  Gorgeous.

We arrived on a rare sunny and warm day.  Coming from Michigan, where it has been hot and dry for a month or more, we enjoyed the relative coolness but weren't properly respectful of the sunshine.  We would learn better as Monday and Tuesday were both grey and cold. 

So we walked, returned to the hotel and dressed for dinner, then met a local friend of one of my team for dinner.  We went to a microbrew called The Ram, in the University Village (looked like an outdoor shopping mall, very close to the UW campus).  I had a beer called Buttface Amber Ale.  It was great.  We also ate seafood (as we had resolved to do in Seattle - we would also later have Mexican food in Arizona and barbeque in Texas).

After a nice dinner, we got a ride back to the hotel (they had a shuttle, which was very nice).  I went to bed (although not to sleep as the time change worked against me here).

Monday was our first all-day meeting with a university.  I found the exercise room in the hotel and did my treadmill time, then got some coffee in the shop off the lobby.  Not a Starbuck's, although that company originated in Seattle, but instead Tully's Coffee, also a chain. 

Four of us later met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant and then we all walked across the street to the meeting.

After it was over, we rushed back to change to more casual clothes and grab the hotel shuttle to take us to downtown Seattle.  The driver let us off near Pike's Place market.  That is where the guys who work in the fish markets throw the fish around.  We arrived in time for a show but it was so crowded that one could not get a good photo.  It was fun, though.

Then we went looking for a restaurant, and the walk was enough to work up an appetite.  The streets are sharply canted toward the Sound, and one is often digging in to walk up or down hill safely.  Nothing like home, and a bit intimidating, really.  I almost felt that I could fall off my own feet.

We ended up at a restaurant called Etta's that was near the waterfront and just across the street from Cutter's Crab House, where I had eaten the last time I was in Seattle, over 15 years back.  The food at Etta's was decent, but not special (sorry to say).  Still, it was a nice meal.

We then wandered off to find a bar and located a wine bar in a mall that one of our group remembered from one of his previous trips.  I wasn't up for wine so I had a bottle of pomegranate tea which was different - not sweet at all as I would expect with a fruit juice and tea blend.  It was good.

We returned to the hotel and some of my colleagues continued to drink in the hotel bar but I actually had hopes of getting some sleep so I headed to my room.  However, it was another long night as I dozed fitfully until about 4 am.  After that I slept hard but of course had to get up at a reasonable time on Tuesday morning as we were headed for Tucson.  At least we had a direct flight.

We had a late lunch at a nearby sports bar, then split up.  Three of my colleagues were having a horseback ride in a nearby national park but I declined.  It has been at least 15 years since I have ridden and I had images of suffering a major injury a thousand miles from home.  So I took a long walk around the area, scoping out places for dinner, even though it was very hot (mid to high 90s).  We ate late, once everyone was back, and turned in fairly early.

After our meeting with the University of Arizona folks, we got a cab for an authentic Mexican restaurant.  I had a chimichanga that was pretty good, but then I skipped the hot sauce (not much for really spicy foods, so much of the menu would have been wasted on me).  Rather than cab to another location afterwards, we just went back to the hotel, then took a walk through campus, took some photos, and then ended up at a wine bar near the hotel for a couple of drinks and some intense, work-related conversation.

The next day, it was on to Lubbock, Texas, via Dallas.  For the first time, we had a flight delay (this time we were on American Airlines), but still got to Dallas in time for our flight to Lubbock, although since Dallas is such a large airport, we worried ahead of time about the connection.  But the tram/shuttle between the terminals is convenient and fast, and we had plenty of time.  One member of the group had time to pick up a Texas Longhorns ball cap (not the university we were visiting but something he had always wanted) and another of us got a purse with the leather panels dyed like the state flag.  I just picked up a book, a diet soda, and some mints.

Lubbock was the only place we had to rent a van as the university was some distance from our hotel.  Even though we had reserved ahead, we had some trouble getting the size we needed - 5 people with luggage for a week cannot fit into a standard car, or even a normal SUV.  Finally we were on our way to the Overton Hotel, which I noted with amusement was on Mac Davis Lane.  Not all of the group were old enough to remember him, but I did.   He hails from Lubbock.

We arrived after 6pm so we stopped only briefly at the hotel to check in and unload our baggage before heading out to dinner.  We ate at J & M Bar B Q, which had a menu on a chalkboard that listed the types of mesquite barbequed meats you could order (by the half pound or the pound).  Or one could order a one meat, two meat, or three meat dinner and specify meats and sides, which is what we did.  Almost all of us had brisket as one meat - you could get it shredded or sliced.  They also had ribs, sausage, pulled pork, etc.  I had shredded beef brisket and german sausage, with an extra cup of sauce on the side, mashed potatoes & gravy and baked beans.  I didn't like the beans - they were not the sweet and molasses-heavy style I am used to, but rather a tart barbequed style with no sweetness.  I didn't care for them.

Because the restaurant had no liquor, we went afterwards down the street a short ways to the Cap Rock Cafe.  This is a bar that is the "Best Place to Have a Beer" - so their coasters say.  They did have good beer, and served it in a heavy glass goblet.  I used to have one of these about thirty years ago, which I used to keep loose change in.  Quite a blast from the past!

Again, we spent most of our time thrashing through the things we had learned thus far on the trip and how we could approach our written proposals.  Those of us who were less techie got an illustration on the relationship between our mainframe and web files and how they talk to each other, using coasters, drink stirrers, sugar packets, and other table trash as props.

The next day, after our final meeting, we went to dinner at a steakhouse near the city's Friday night Art Walk.  We did have to wait a while for a table.  There was at least one convention in town, and the restaurant was full of people wearing badges of Meat Processors.  Wow, who knew?

After a nice meal and some good beer, we got on the Art Walk shuttle and visited a display area of photos, jewelry, and yard sculpture, then took another shuttle to the Buddy Holly Museum on Crickets Avenue.  There I picked up a T-shirt for one of my cat sitters, and we took photos near the statue of Buddy Holly across the way.

Back at the hotel, we settled on the outdoor patio for a drink.  Even though it was evening, and the sun had set, it was over 90 degrees outdoors, but we were becoming used to the heat.  Of course, the next day we would be headed back to Michigan.  But we had to have a drink to celebrate the successful conclusion of our trip.  We shared a toast with shots all around, then spent some time winding down before heading up to bed.  We were flying first to Houston, then Detroit, and then driving the two hours back to East Lansing, and had to leave the hotel shortly after 6am.  We would then arrive home approximately 12 hours later (with time change figured in), and would be both glad, and slightly sorry, to have the trip be over.

Arlington

The time I spent in Virginia was primarily going to and from DC, but I did spend a considerable time at Arlington National Cemetary on one of my first visits. I knew a few things about Arlington before my visit - that it is primarily a cemetary for members of the US armed services, that it has the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and that John F. Kennedy is buried there under an eternal flame.

I did not know there was a monument to the astronauts of the Challenger, who were lost on liftoff in 1986.  That was very moving when I came across it, as I remember well seeing that on television when it happened.

I hope to visit more of the state in the future.

Grand Rapids

I used to live in the Grand Rapids area - granted, it was many years ago, but I don't remember it being so interesting.

Last month I was in the city for a short conference, and I was pleasantly surprised at both the diversity and cleanliness of the downtown area as well as the tour of the Fredrick Meijer gardens that was one of our evening entertainment events. The only thing I really did not like was the room in my hotel.

As I arrived, the downtown area was very busy with the Art Prize event. There were art pieces on the sidewalks and in the downtown museum, and there were crowds of people strolling the streets to look at them. The weather was sunny and crisp, which was perfect for viewing the pieces. There were a lot of great pieces, but here is one I liked - an ape made of forks.


The evening excursion to the Meijer garden was also art-related. There is an outdoor sculpture garden, indoor greenhouses (I especially liked the greenhouse containing the carnivorous plants), and an art gallery. The latter had a piece I really loved - it was a light installation with mirrors and pieces of colored glass that filled a wall. There were only two small, powerful spotlights, but the reflections, deflections, and color changes made a great piece. I really wanted it but I don't have that much clear wall space. Tragically. I don't know how you buy a piece like that, anyway. Do they come to your house and install it for you?

The hotel was, of course, the Amway Grand (that is the major conference hotel in Grand Rapids). The meeting rooms are beautiful, and the reception we had in the 27th story restaurant and bar was wonderful and gave a great view, but my personal hotel room was in the "old side" of the building and was not very comfortable. The obvious things were missing, such as a coffeepot and a fridge. The layout was a bit strange, with a lot of open space in the middle of the room but the desk faced away from the bed and the TV and was poorly lit for working.

But the trip was nice. I would spend more time in Grand Rapids.

Boston

I returned to Boston for a conference last week, but really, I didn't see or do much (the weather there was hot and humid, as it was in fact across most of the country).

Boston this time was all about food. My single vow was to consume as much seafood as I could while I was there, and I was pretty successful.

The first evening, I met a few friends when I was scoping out the convention area and attached hotels and mall. We ended up at a small restaurant on Columbus Avenue near Dartmouth, called Coda. We were wandering along looking at the menus posted outside when a young man stopped and told us, "Don't bother with that one, there's a better one around the corner." That's how we found Coda. It was a nice, quiet, and not too busy bar and grill. I had Prince Edward Island mussels.

The second evening, I went alone to Legal Seafood - there are many of these in the Boston area. Because I was alone, I sat at the bar and had a Sam Adams, then the special (chowder, a 1.5lb lobster, and strawberry shortcake). Another lone diner two seats down had the same meal, except for wine rather than beer. He decided I was his dining buddy and talked to me throughtout the meal. (Apparently, he also knew everything about pretty much everything.) I did like the food, though.

Third evening found me in the Cheesecake Factory with several colleagues, where I had their New Orleans shrimp (made with andouille sausage) and a half-slice of carrot cake. I had heartburn that night, but it was so worth it.

The final evening in Boston, I met another friend and we ventured to Newbury Street and had sushi at a sidewalk cafe, where we could watch the passers-by and catch up. Also excellent.

On my way home at Logan Airport, I must admit I also picked up a crab cake sandwich. I just didn't get enough seafood, even though I did have it every day. I would like to visit again, just for the food.

Going West

I chose South Dakota as my next state to visit based upon recommendations of a couple of my pen pals. One of them lives in Lead, SD (pronounced like the metal, not like the lead in leadership). Another of my correspondents who lives in New York State has been there several times and had some good recommendations also.

I noted that if I stayed in Rapid City, I would have access to not only Mt. Rushmore, but also would be within a day trip of Devil's Tower in Wyoming. It was hard to tell whether Montana and/or North Dakota would be within driving distance.

The trip didn't start out well. I have to remember the tendency of United Express to be late out of Lansing. This was the second time I could remember a delay in leaving -- this one well over an hour. The only good thing about it is that I had a three hour layover in Chicago, so I didn't miss the connection to Rapid City.

The Rapid City airport was even smaller than Lansing's, with five gates and a single baggage carousel. It was simple to find my bag and the car rental counters, and only took a few minutes to get out of the airport and drive down a long country road to the highway and my hotel.

I hadn't realized that the Central/Mountain time zone boundary actually went through the middle of the state, so landing in Rapid City, on the far western side of South Dakota, I was two hours behind my start time, ending up in Mountain Daylight Time. (I found that interesting, also, in that one of the major TV stations in SD was in Souix Falls, in the east, and their broadcast schedule was CDT. It meant everything on TV was two hours earlier.)

The good thing about the time change meant that after hours of traveling, I arrived with most of the afternoon left. I landed at 1pm, was checked in to the hotel by 2, and was on my way to Mt. Rushmore shortly afterwards. I had chosen Rapid City as my base due to the proximity to Mt. Rushmore, to start with, and I was happy to get out on the road on a sunny Sunday afternoon.


Mountain driving is always a challenge for me, although I am not as afraid when I am actually doing it as in thinking about it or, worse, in my dreams. I have vertigo and in my dreams I have no control over it. When I am actually driving it, I manage to keep my mind on the driving and not on what might happen if I make a mistake.

The route to Mt. Rushmore had steep roads but beautiful scenery. Before the monument, the road went through Keystone, the nearest town - population 311 according to the sign. It is obviously a tourist mecca that reminded me of Mackinac Island - full of shops selling souvenirs, cafes, ice cream shops. And there were lots of hotels.

I also find it really hard to concentrate on driving when approaching a monument - I could get glimpses of Mt. Rushmore as I drove in and it was hard not to look until I was safely in the parking lot. But I got there and it was pretty neat. I walked about the monument, took photos, bought some postcards. On the way out, I saw and photographed a wild goat who was calmly cropping grass near the parking lot. Several men were gingerly taking turns posing sort of near the goat while others in their group took pictures.

I turned the wrong way leaving, but that was serendipitous since I ended up finding another view point called the Profile Turnout, where one could see Washington's face in profile, although the others were all hidden behind him.

I made my way back to the hotel by another route, so I had a little tour of Rapid City. It became obvious that a lot of the economy of the area is around tourism. The highway exit where my hotel was located had about a dozen economy hotels and motels around it, along with a variety of restaurants like Denny's, Burger King, Perkins, Golden Corral, Subway, Arby's, etc. It did mean that I was close to a variety of places to eat. And I found a couple of Starbuck's, which is always important in view of the cheap coffee that is usually included with hotel coffeemakers.

At my hotel, the desk clerk was a twenty-ish woman with a UK accent. I did wonder how she ended up there. The hotel also had breakfast included in the price (extremely cheap nightly rate of $40) but as I discovered the next day, it was not much of a breakfast and after the first day, I went out for breakfast each morning.

The Black Hills meant that I had some great scenery on my drives. The hills were beautifully hilly, although I don't know why they are called black. The soil is dark red, but in May there was a good covering of grass. There isn't much between towns, though. And I was pretty surprised to see signs on the interstate highway before the final exit at each town that had lights and an actual gate that could be used to close the next stretch of highway. These were so common on each stretch of road that I concluded there were enough serious snow storms there to justify it. And I began to notice the stretches of snow fence along the highways as well.

Monday was sunny so I wanted to take advantage of the weather (as the forecasters were saying that there would be rain throughout the rest of my visit). I drove west from Rapid City to Wyoming, with the goal of visiting the Devil's Tower monument there before heading north to Montana.



The Devil's Tower monument is amazing. Again, in driving toward it, it is visible from the highway a long way off and it is hard to keep your eyes off it and on the road instead. Although I was not driving in mountainous terrain today, it was an extremely windy day (gusts to 45 mph) and I did need to pay attention to keeping the car on the road. It was quite something, and I did stop at a couple of viewpoints to take photos before I got to the park proper.

There is a hiking trail about a mile long that circles the base of the Tower and I found this just perfect for a nice walk and a number of good vantage points for photos. The Tower itself is made of igneous rock (magma) that is believed to be the remnants of volcanic action. The sedimentary rock around it wore away over eons, leaving the tower itself. Large chunks of magma have peeled off the tower in years past and now litter the base. I walked past one shard about the size and shape of a boxcar lying along the trail.

One can climb the tower, if one has the skill and registers with the park office. I saw a climber, laden with ropes and carbiners, but because of the wind, he had decided not to make the climb. The literature says the top of the Tower is about the size of a football field. I was not about to find out in person. The walk about the base was good for me.

Then I was on the road again, heading north to Hulett (population 400-some), to find highway 112 north to Montana. It wasn't prominently marked and I drove past it the first time and had to head back to find it. Then I drove 30 miles without seeing another town until I got to Alzada, Montana (barely a widening of the road) where I stopped for lunch at a saloon that advertised "cheap drinks -- lousy food". It wasn't much of a place. I shared the place at lunchtime with the heavily-tattooed, dyed-blond waitress/cook and a solitary beer-drinking rancher who had decided that the high winds had ended his work day early. I had a buffalo burger, tater tots, and coffee while trying to peruse the various tattoos on the waitress without obviously staring. She wore a black camisole dress, stout black work boots, and heavy-framed glasses. The bandana around her neck was tattooed, not cloth.

After that, I decided since I had eaten and used a restroom in Montana, it counted as a stopover in the state. I hope one day to actually visit again, on the western side, and see Glacier National Park, but Montana is so large that I would have had to drive another two hours to reach the nearest city. I was done for the day. Instead, I drove back through a long stretch of Wyoming that was pretty much uninhabited, then crossed back into South Dakota and stopped for gasoline and some diet sodas in the town of Belle Fourche, at an elevation of a more normal 3017 feet above sea level. Devil's Tower, at the base, is 4250 feet, while at the top, it is 5112 feet high.

I returned to Rapid City via Highway 85 to interstate 90, having visited three states in one day. I had coffee at a Starbucks, dinner at Golden Corral (salad, shrimp, ribs, and dessert), and an early night in.

Tuesday, though overcast, was not raining, so I headed east to visit the Badlands. This was a highlight of the trip. I expected spectacular views at overlooks, which there were. I didn't know I would be driving through the Badlands and have many, many spectacular views from both over-looks and in the heart of the Badlands - but I did. I kept stopping to take more photos, to walk the trails, and seeing view after view that was even more amazing. After a while I felt ridiculous taking more pictures, yet I could not resist stopping at each view spot to take even more photos. I almost felt that I couldn't hold any more incredible experiences - some overcast, some light rain, later some sunshine but all the views were just amazing.


I went back to Rapid City and had lunch at the Rushmore Mall food court where I got a sandwich at the Subway there, perused my email, and got a coffee at the Starbucks there. Then I went back to the room for a nap. Out to the Mongolian Grill for an early dinner.

Wednesday - there had been rain overnight but it wasn't raining when I went out for breakfast and then headed southwest to Custer State Park. However it was foggy, and I had a nightmare drive. I didn't realize I could have accessed the park by a fairly conventional entrance and instead came in via a nightmare drive through highway 16A - Iron Mountain Road - that had switchbacks, spiral drives where the road went over itself, and split into single lanes, and went through tunnels that were single-car widths - pretty awful!

But once I got in, I drove the wildlife loop and saw antelope, wild turkeys, and some buffalo - close up - including some with nursing calves. Pretty cool. I also saw a black-billed magpie, which has an extralong tail. But after the stressful drive in, I was ready to be done with driving for a while. I had lunch at the mall and a coffee at Starbucks and read a while, then back to the hotel. I did some time on the treadmill there, then went to Red Lobster (a treat for me!) for crab alfredo, salad, lobster bisque, and those cheddar biscuits. Yum.

Thursday was my travel day home but the daily plane to Chicago doesn't normally leave until 1:45, so I had a wait at the airport. And of course, the plane was late arriving so late leaving from Rapid City. Again, since I had a three hour layover scheduled in Chicago, the late departure didn't affect my arrival time home. But again, makes me wonder why I book United.