Things I did on blog vacation.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger      15 comments      link this post     


Oh, it was a very busy time.

1. I fed over-ripe blueberries to a gopher by dumping them down the hole and wondering if it was an annoyance or manna from heaven. Either way, it made me laugh, and I felt very Alice-in-Wonderland.
   
2. I made a shirt out of a pair of pants. No kidding. It's hilarious. I shall wear it with pride.
3. I tested two competing brands of "fine" chocolates in a carefully controlled taste test, the results of which will be forthcoming.
4. I made a cake for Sunday school mocking Michael "Joel Osteen" Rohrer's Chiclet over-religious smile using my art skills to create a confectionery delight.
5. I mowed lawn. Twice.
   
6. My left hand went numb and gave out in the middle of my Rachmaninoff attempt during the offertory on Sunday morning, forcing me to make up about four measures until feeling came back, thereby killing Rachmaninoff, though he be dead previously.
   
7. I did some freelance design work, one for one a university I attended. During the design process, I had several funny email conversations with my design contact involving tapeworms, my inability to answer direct questions, and my dislike for social networking sites.
8. I did some other random work.
9. I developed Julie's Theory of Everything which explains how I explain things to myself and how I got out, yet again, of a dark place on my own. I also developed a theory on the Island of Man, and Habits vs. Needs.
   

But then I took a real vacation during my blog vacation.

Some things I did on my real vacation:

1. Told dad he was driving down I35 with his blinker on.
2. Went to a Bong museum (yep, a Bong museum).
3. Saw a small sailboat named Chewbacca in Duluth.
4. Went to the IMAX and saw "Hurricane on the Bayou", a film about the bayou and Katrina, watching nervously as my mother covered her eyes and expressed dizziness from the introductory IMAX sequence before the film began.
   
5. Had to translate my mother's mumbles into louder versions for my father.
6. Faced an almost amazing amount of indecision in a gas station, watching my parents try to decide what they were going to get to eat.
7. Listened to Gordon Lightfoot's famed take on the Edmund Fitzgerald and finally found it fitting.
   
8. Had a nice time sketching and shooting photos and video along the pier in St. Ignace.
9. Had several nice meals with the parents, including two chocolate malts so far.
10. Dipped my feet in Lake Superior.
11. Saw Lake Michigan and Lake Huron and have decided I need to now see the other two Great Lakes in order to complete my collection.
12. Took the Starline Ferry to Mackinac Island, and then had a carriage tour. And then toured the fort. And then ate lunch in the tea room. And then split off from the parents and did a little shopping and wandering on my own while trying to avoid all seemingly three million tourists there.
13. Noticed the Mackinac Island Public Library was much, much smaller than the houses next to it. Which I think says a lot about priorities on the island.
14. I sketched some of the horses on the island until annoying people started hovering and talking (as if I couldn't hear) "I think she's drawing those horses -- I guess she's an artist or something."
    
15. Hit only one of 17 fudge shops (Murdick's Fudge) on Mackinac Island. I think that shows self control.
16. Avoided stepping on countless piles of gum, garbage, manure, food scraps, and melted chocolate candy on the sidewalk, this feat only accomplished by the fact that I tend to walk around with my head down at all times. People think I'm dejected, but I'm really just watching out for gum.
17. Watched the Grand Hotel carriage go by and wondered what it was like to be rich and not wearing a hooded sweatshirt with holes and tears in the cuffs. But that passed. Because I remembered that I am rich, just not over-wasteful rich.
    
18. Was the only one to swim in the pool here in our hotel, which was a nice change from all the people earlier in the day.
19. Drove home, stopping for a...chocolate malt. Finished reading a book.
    

My purchases:

1. Some unusual spices at a cooking store, spices which I will use to change the world for the better.
2. Postcards, though I didn't send them.
3. Notecards, because I liked the art and imagery.
4. A book on the Great Lakes which I am enjoying reading: The Living Great Lakes, by Jerry Dennis. Purchased at the Island Bookstore on Mackinac Island.
5. Um...fudge. Lots of it.
6. A T-shirt. And, being a T-shirt designer some of the time, I also made note of the new design ideas currently appearing on tourist T-shirts so that I might copy them in the great tradition of bad designers who are burned out on T-shirt designing of their own.
7. Some more postcards. Which I didn't send, either.
8. A book about werewolves and other strange tales from the Great Lakes region.
9. Tiny glass chickens. Tiny tiny. Really tiny.
10. Fine hot chocolate mix.
11. A series of "Medal of Honor" comic books that featured Major Richard Bong as one of the story lines. Obviously, I purchased them at the Bong museum.
    
12. I think that's it.
    

Notes noted in my notebook:

1. The road construction guy with the stop sign (near Ishpeming, MI) gave me a wink as we drove past and I decided that was OK. He was cute.
2. The bathroom fan in the Super 8 Motel will not drown out two people snoring.
3. Staying at Super 8 Motels for an entire trip means all rooms are the same and so each morning I wake up in the same place, a kind of time warp in maroon and beige. With a complimentary bar of soap.
4. The moment I put my MP3 player earbuds in, mom starts talking to me.
5. Standing on the soft, sandy beach of Lake Superior was an unusual experience. It felt like the ocean, sounded like the ocean...but the water was clear and seemed slicker, without the salt, sand and bits of seashell abrading my skin. Ideal. Cold.
6. In fact, the only thing that marred the Lake Superior moment was a mother with a fat, bratty son and a whiny, crying daughter. And herself, a woman prone to yelling out empty threats and not carrying them out, choosing to stay seated on her chair and read her paperback book while her son threw rocks at his sister and made her cry.
7. A bummer to be riding around Mackinac Island in a horse carriage, all immersed in the 19th century, and see a police SUV drive by.
8. Pasties were commonly advertised in Michigan. I'm hoping it was food. If it wasn't, I a) think the entire state is pervy and b) laughed a few too many times over the incongruity of a place advertising Grandma's Pasties.
9. Note to European tourists: we don't use dollars in Europe, so quit trying to use Euros over here. They're called "euros" not "worldos."
10. Our carriage tour guide -- Al -- had a voice like Red Green. He also made me chortle with laughter over a comment on Gerald Ford having spent time on the Island as a boy scout and then pointed out a flight of stairs and wondered if that was the first stairway Ford ever took a header down. No one else laughed. I thought of Chevy Chase.
11. In Michigan, 87.6 percent of what you see on the highway is for sale. That's a little rough math, but seriously, there were innumerable cars, businesses, houses, lawnmowers...you name it ... all for sale. Does anyone use a realtor or used car lot?
    

Sketches from my trip notebook:

1. Kinds of tourists: The graffiti artist (based on actual graffiti in the men's bathroom on the dock at St. Ignace, according to my father.)
2. Kinds of tourists: The Asian mob.
3. Kinds of tourists: The moron mother.
4. Kinds of tourists: The German tourist.
5. Sketch: Lighthouse at St. Ignace.
6. Sketch: Horses on Mackinac Island.
   

Thanks for all of you who have emailed wondering if I was: dead, quitting blogging, dead, gone for good, or dead. I am alive, very much well, and obviously, am not quitting blogging.

Labels: blogging, family, my life, travel

Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger      8/08/2007 10:11:00 PM      (15) comments      Links to this post    
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