Happy holidays!

Update from the road

Wednesday morning I took off with my sister from our house in Minnesota and headed north. Highlights so far include...

Wednesday

• Being introduced to the concept of "guerilla photography" (invented by my sister and father?) -- hold the camera out the window and snap pictures while driving and hope some of them come out
  
• Lunch in Duluth, MN at Hell's Kitchen
  
• Seeing the John B. Aird (boat) for the second time this summer
  
• Dessert in Two Harbors at Betty's Pies
  
• Visiting Gooseberry Falls
  
• Being asked to pull over at an international border crossing for the first time in my life. (They asked me multiple times why I was moving, and what my new job would entail... I think they were trying to make sure I wasn't fleeing to Canada, which is tempting, but not the case.)
  
• A night in Thunder Bay, Ontario after having to switch rooms when the first room was unopenable by any key in the hotel.
  

Thursday

• Lots of rain while driving along the Canadian side of Lake Superior
  
• Lots of fog too
  
• Stopping in Wawa, ON to see the big steel geese (three of them!) and buy some in-car fun (trivia games for "ages 8-18")
  
• Dipping the toes in at Katherine Cove... in the rain
  
• Seeing Agawa Rock again... in the rain
  
• Camping on a beach on Agawa Bay... in the rain... resulting in a very angry sister
  
• Lots of card playing in a tent (which stayed surprisingly dry inside)
  
• Sleeping to the sounds of waves crashing on the shore... the rain had finally stopped
  

Friday

• Waking up just as the sun finished rising and catching the tail end of pinkness over the lake
  
• Wading briefly in Lake Superior and walking down the beach while the aforementioned angry sister waited back at the campsite
  
• Successfully building a small campfire... quickly stopped by angry sister wanting to "just get on the road right away"
  
• Shopping in Sault Ste Marie to buy sister dry jeans
  
• Trying in vain to find Mad Libs at at least five different stores
  
• Driving to many episodes of The Jack Benny Show
  
• Dinner and a walk along a Nipissing Lake beach in North Bay, Ontario
  
• Solving crossword puzzles while driving
  
• Stopping in Pembroke, the site of a Fiddlers and Steppers Festival and sleeping in a bed across from a snoring, much appeased sister
  

Anne, who is by far the better photographer, took many good pictures. At some point I'll get them off the camera and post the highlights.

Tomorrow... onto Montreal.

State Fair Placentophagy

It is time for my annual report of being gluttonous at the Minnesota State Fair. This year I hit the fair in two separate trips. Last night with my mom and dad, we saw Brandi Carlile in a free concert, which was awesome -- her cover of "Hallelujah" is fantastic (better than Rufus Wainwright, not as good as Jeff Buckley... but who is?). Today with my mother and sister we saw the animal barns, which was also awesome because of my first ever observation of placentophagy. (Note that I don't mean to imply any similarities between the awesomeness of Brandi Carlile and the awesomeness of placentophagy.)

But before I get to the sheep eating one of the richest sources of proteins available, here is the list of foods I ate:

• Pig Lickers (chocolate covered bacon) -- Delicious, but rich
  
• A turkey drumstick -- generally reserved for Renaissance Festivals, it fits in well with the State Fair's "on-a-stick" theme
  
• Frozen apple cider -- So fresh it still tasted like apples
  
• A honey stick -- Just a quarter for a straw full of clover honey
  
• The best chocolate malt ever -- I wait all year for this dairy barn treat, located next to the butter sculptures
  
• Birch Beer -- Why drink a standard Coca Cola or Pepsi product when all this variation is available?
  
• Sweet Martha's Chocolate Chip Cookies -- Comes in a giant bucket
  
• Scotch Egg (hard boiled egg stuffed in pork sausage and slathered in horseradish... on a stick, duh) -- Always a favorite
  
• Deep fried cheese curds -- A mouthwatering heart attack waiting to happen
  
• All-I-Could-Drink Milk -- A pathetically low number of three glasses this year (because we were only there once and my sister wouldn't let us return for more)
  
• Raspberry Chocolate Wine Ice Cream -- I couldn't taste the supposed wine
  
• Black Cow (root beer float with chocolate syrup) -- I was skeptical, but it was good
  
• Bites of my mother's corn dog and my sister's brownie -- Always share
  
• Free water from WCCO radio to wash it all down!
  

And now for the part you've been waiting for... at the Miracle of Birth Center (i.e. stick a bunch of pregnant animals in a barn and hope most of them give birth during the fair), a sheep had given birth to two lambs just before we arrived. When we got there, the birth was so new that the placenta had just fallen out and some of it was still attached to the mother and the umbilical cords were still attached to the lambs. Sure enough, mom and babies were nibbling at that rarest of protein sources, the placenta.

For the human kids in attendance, it was quite the learning experience. I heard more than one parent awkwardly trying to explain to their kid just what they were seeing. "No, dear, it's okay that she's bleeding. That's natural." "Um, I'm not sure why she's eating it. Maybe it tastes good."

And for lasting this long into the entry, if you're not easily grossed out by the facts of life, here's one of my tamer photos of the scene. And here's a little more detailed one, but not for the faint of heart (or all work places). (Both photos are >2MB.)

I should probably mention...

I'm moving out of Ann Arbor in a few hours. First I'm heading to Minnesota to visit with the family, and then up through Canada landing eventually in Boston where I'll start a new job at my old stomping grounds of MGH.

Also, Nathan Crockett is my hero as are Joshua Brammer, Mark Haynes, James Wiswall, Sarah Barbrow, and John Prensner, because all of them helped me pack my stuff into a little cube to be hauled away by ABF tomorrow. But double kudos to Nate for moving the most stuff.

Bay Mills students on YouTube

As we're wrapping up the project, which ends tomorrow, we've allowed the students to have a little fun and create their own "youth based" content. The highlight of these are the two student created films, now available on a YouTube near you...

• Blueberry Picking (or "What To Do If You See A Bear") -- I get some co-creator credits here for procuring some sound effects and bear footage. I'm also credited for my appearance as "That one white girl."
• The Brad and Cole Show -- Brad and Cole go fishing and don't catch anything.

The Return to Agawa Rock

After my previous trip to see the Agawa pictographs, I mentioned it to Wanda Perron, one of the Bay Mills historians, and she lent me a book about the pictographs written in 1992. While I knew I hadn't gotten to all of the accessible pictographs because of the weather, official park literature told me that the last panel of pictographs was accessible only by boat. However, the book mentioned that if the water is calm and you are feeling adventuresome, you can veer off the coastal trail a bit a reach the other side of the rock. The potential for finding the remaining pictographs was enough to get me to go back this weekend, armed with a newer camera borrowed from the virtual museum project.

Saturday, before the alarm clock went off, I woke up at 5 am. As an extended aside, knowing the Olympics had started and that it was 5 pm in Beijng, I flipped on the TV and observed that while NBC was re-airing the opening ceremonies for a second time, the CBC (Canada) was airing live coverage of the first day of swimming prelims, including Michael Phelps first Olympic race. Guess which channel I watched... NBC take note.

After I had my Olympic fix, I got on the road. Before reaching the park, I took a detour to check out the Chippewa Falls. After stopping to get a park pass, I went straight to Agawa Rock where I found much calmer water than during my previous trip. (The two linked photos were taken at almost exactly the same spot.) As a result of the nicer weather, I saw both things I had seen before and was able to make it further down the rock and see pictographs that were new to me.

But that wasn't the exciting part.

After I had my fill of the officially accessible pictographs, I decided it was time to try and find the last panel. Some friendly kayakers had described the other side of the rock for me, so I had a vague idea of what I was looking for. I headed south down the coastal trail and veered off when I thought was at the edge of the forested side of Agawa Rock. About 50 meters away from the trail, I found myself sitting on a smooth sloping rock leading right into the water that edged up against what I was sure was the back of Agawa Rock. After taking a few minutes to size up the situation, I carefully sidled my way around the corner and found... nothing.

Disappointed, I went back and sat on the larger rock face for a few minutes and ate some wild blueberries while I tried to figure out where the last panel of pictographs might be if this wasn't it. Deciding that in fact, this must be it, I went down around the corner again and noticed a second corner. The waves were lapping a little to close to the edge of that corner, but I decided it was worth checking out.

As a first test, I reached my arm around with the camera and, much to my delight, pulled back a picture of pictographs! I can't even begin to describe the thrill I got when I saw the image in my little two inch preview screen. Knowing what was around the corner, I sidled my way over and examined a second Misshepezhieu and a very faint turtle with a long tail.

At this point, I noticed some clouds rolling in and decided to head back up the cliff. Sure enough, no sooner than when I put my shoes back on at the top of the cliff, it started to rain. And then pour. And then hail. I dashed off down the trail to my car to dry off and found a change of clothes in the back seat -- now I know where that putz shirt went!

Once the rain stopped, I decided to take the coastal trail north and see the sights, take a brief dip, eat some more wild berries, and saw a bear.

Oh yeah, the bear.

It was a small black bear, about 5 meters away from me, and by the time I noticed him, he was already running away from me. Still, I promptly started booking it back to the trailhead and didn't stop to take anymore pictures. Don't go hiking alone, kids -- I am a bad example.

But the pictures I did take, including those of a sunset walk along the Pancake Bay beach, are here.

I Found My Thrill

On Friday we had a partial class field trip, with me and a little over half the class, to go blueberry picking at one of the many wild blueberry patches on the reservation. Rikki Timmer, one of the students, taught me the merits of "blue mouth" picking -- eating as you go. Despite the stomach ache I may or may not have developed, it was a delicious pre-lunch snack.

After returning back to the apartment in Sault Ste Marie, I took my bucket of berries (which was a little less full than when I left) and made a wild blueberry streudel. It's proven to be an excellent breakfast... and lunch... and after dinner snack.

And because, yes, I am mostly posting en masse mostly to dump photos, here are the blueberry images.

Agawa Canyon Tour Train

Last weekend I went on the Agawa Canyon Tour Train, which takes you 114 miles into northern Ontario into areas where roads don't go and drops you off at Agawa Canyon. Unfortunately, they only give you an hour and a half there, which is just barely enough time to see all three waterfalls and go up the lookout -- if you're fast. I saw everything, but it felt very rushed. Three hours would have been better.

I brought my camera and discovered just how difficult it is to take pictures on a moving train. Because the train doesn't slow down just because you're passing something pretty, taking a photograph pretty much consists of putting the lens against the window, snapping the picture, and hoping it's not terrible. But nevertheless, I took pictures and, a week later, they are here.