12:25 Monday morning. Welcome 2007.

We’re in Two Rivers on a belated holiday visit to my folks. It’s been a pretty low-key weekend. Most of my old friends from here aren’t in the area–New Year’s isn’t a holiday to come home for, after all–but we did get to see Ben and Beth for a few hours on Saturday, enough time to take in a board game and catch up on things. We also ran into my old friend Lisa at Wal-Mart today (long story), so the two Lisas finally got to meet each other.

The big news about the weekend is that Lisa and I finally told my parents about, well, the big news, and so I’m finally comfortable talking about it here: Come June we expect to be parents. We’re both excited, albeit with a wee bit of terror thrown in at the same time. Usually when talking about something big going on in my life I say it’ll be an interesting year, or maybe an interesting few months, but in this case I guess I have to say it’ll be an interesting couple of decades.

~~~

I’ll try not to write to much about they baby here–I can’t stand it when others babble about their kids, be they current or pending–but as an expectant father, I can’t promise that I won’t. And with that I’ll sign off for tonight in hopes of getting a good night’s rest (while, I suppose, I still can).

More later.

So, it’s Christmas in Madison. My memory is always foggy on such things, but I believe this is the first Christmas I’ve spent without my parents. Our holiday visit with them will instead come over the New Year’s weekend.

~~~

It’s been a good visit so far. We delayed our drive down a day after Minneapolis got hit by the same storm that clocked Denver a couple of days before. What we didn’t get in the form of snow we made up for in the form of freezing rain. The 4% grade in front of our condo proved to be too much for many vehicles attempting to climb it; I stood on the front porch Thursday afternoon and watched as one driver after another attempted to reach Hennepin Avenue, only to be forced to retreat to the previous intersection in frustration. As we loaded presents into our car Friday morning, we found that one neighbor even had her parked car totaled by a careless driver sometime the night before. Talk about a crappy Christmas present.

Not surprisingly, we’ve encountered a lot of food this weekend. Friday night we joined Lisa’s parents and Michelle and Dwight for a fish fry at the Avenue Bar, a legitimately retro bar I’m sure would be huge with the hipsters were it closer to the university. The food turned out to be really good–not much of a fried fish person, I went with the Atlantic cod fish boil–but the service was tedious. (Our reservations were for 7:00, but we didn’t get seated until 7:45, and then didn’t get food until almost an hour later.) Saturday brought a trip to Firefly, an Asian-fusion kind of place a few minutes from Lisa’s parents house. It was tasty, but not really anything to write home about.

Aside from the tasty ham dinner Lisa’s parents prepared for Christmas, other food from the weekend included a Christmas Eve burger and fries at Kopp’s in Milwaukee. Lisa and I had headed there in hopes of catching the Biedermeier exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum, but had to abandon that plan upon learning the museum would be closing early for Christmas Eve. Stuck with an open afternoon, we improvised and walked Brady Street, followed by a quick drive around the UW-Milwaukee campus (Lisa was kind of offended by them not using red and white as their school colors) and an hour at an obscenely packed Mayfair Mall. The mall made me think it would be interesting to head to Walgreen’s at 11:00 just to see what kind of crowd was there, but Lisa managed to talk me out of that.

~~~

As far as Christmas itself, this morning brought brunch at my aunt’s here in Madison, a pleasant experience that included a lot of food I shouldn’t be eating as well as a chance to catch up with relatives. The afternoon was spent with Lisa’s side of the family, ending with a round of gift giving that netted me over $300 in Express gift certificates (holy crap). Lisa and I gave two very squeaky toys her parents’ westies, gifts I’m sure will eventually lead her parents to seek revenge in some form.

~~~

Well, it’s getting late, so I should turn in. We obviously don’t head back to work tomorrow, but I do have a bunch of work-related stuff to take care of. Merry Christmas, happy holidays, etcetera, etcetera, and so forth.

Well, other than a ridiculous episode involving Lisa’s car getting towed for a hit-and-run neither she nor her car was involved in, it was a pretty good holiday weekend. Important matters forced us to delay Thanksgiving with my folks, so we went and celebrated the holiday at Lisa’s grandma’s in Wausau instead. With a few days to burn after that, we decided to head down to Madison, where activities ranged from moviegoing to strolling along a relatively-vacant State Street to dealing with a West Highland Terrier with diarrhea. I got to see Robin and Andy on Saturday–Lisa regrettably was feeling a bit under the weather that evening–and found, to no great deal of surprise, that Andy had put up the most precisely-placed Christmas lights in their neighborhood.

Beyond that, not much else to report. I guess I’m writing again.

Useless trivia for the holiday:

• Number of cops seen between Hudson and Wausau: 0.
• Number of dead deer encountered along the same stretch: 11.

Yeah, I know I’m on sabbatical and everything, but I’m on a business trip in California, and a pretty productive one at that, so I thought I’d check in. I’ve had a lot of good food over the past few days, which is kind of my employer’s way of saying “thank you for letting us own your every living breath for 72 hours.” Or something like that.

I love the seasons, and would never want to live somewhere without a winter, but I can see how weather like this could become addictive. It’s 10:40 local time, and a comfortable 65 degrees.

~~~

So, this would usually be the point at which I’d say there’s not much else going on, but of course that isn’t true. Lisa and I just had our one month anniversary, and on top of that, well, there will have to be a bunch of entries some other time.

More later, maybe next year, maybe earlier.

Well, we’re in Kansas City. It wouldn’t be true to say this trip was spur-of-the-moment, but it was close. (We’re at a Hampton Inn for which I paid too much money because I was unwilling to stop at an EconoLodge that was 15 minutes farther from the city.) Today we’re going to head downtown to see a museum and maybe do some shopping, and tonight we’ll be heading over to a Royals game.

The drive down 35 was kind of uneventful. Well, uneventful except for the trailer tread that got kicked up from another car and flew under mine, scraping up and partially detaching the front air dam. I guess there will have to be a call to Progessive about that. Crap.

This is Lisa’s first time to Missouri. From previous experience with it, I probably should have started her on the other side of the state, but we’ll see how things go. Maybe Kansas City won’t turn out to be as skanky as I remembered it to be.

More later.

Well, we’re in Madison. It feels like early morning, but in reality it’s early afternoon. We had a 6:00 start to our day yesterday, and didn’t get to bed until 2:00 last night, so we’re both kind of wiped.

Tire issues really threw yesterday off. We didn’t get out of Detroit until after 11:00, more than a couple of hours after we hoped to be on the road. The stop at the Firestone was necessary, though: The bolt they pulled out of the tire was over an inch long and had made the tire unrepairable. We would’ve had problems had we taken the car on the Interstate. Good thing I didn’t try pulling it out the night before, I guess.  (For what it’s worth, I found a tire place more than 12 miles closer than the place the concierge pointed us to.  She needs to put down that contact book of hers and open up an Internet connection.)
Anyway, we got in really late last night, so we’re visiting Lisa’s folks today. This means I won’t have time to visit my relatives down here, but hopefully we should be able to get back down to Madison in the next month or so.

It was good to meet Lisa’s relatives in Indiana. They’re a nice group of folks. Her grandmother is a spry little woman, although one who’s unfortunately not completely aware of everything going on around her. While over Lisa’s uncle’s place, “Jaws” was playing on the TV. Just as the scene where Quint gets violently ripped about and then eaten came to an end, her grandmother turned to the group and asked “have any of you ever gone fishing on Lake Michigan? It’s a lot of fun.” It sounds like those taking care of her hear such statements a lot, and I have to respect the infinite amounts of patience they must possess to be able to handle that.

Beyond that, not much. We stopped in Ann Arbor on the way out of Michigan so Lisa could see Michigan Stadium and the University of Michigan campus. The stadium was closed to visitors due to construction (usually it’s open on non-gamedays so people can wander in and look), but at least she got to see the campus. On the way out of town we stopped at a grocery store so I could buy some Faygo soda for coworkers. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes over.

Well, the family is slowly starting to congregate downstairs, so I guess I should wrap it up. The next entry will likely be back home in Minneapolis, unless the car breaks down along the way. (More on that potential issue later.)

Going through customs is always annoying, but it can become more so when you don’t have proper proof of citizenship. We hadn’t planned on going to Windsor, so we didn’t have our passports with us. Then again, we didn’t plan on getting a large bolt through one of the Saturn’s back tires, either, and when that happened we were effectively without transportation until tomorrow morning.

But more about the car later.

Following a few online suggestions, we decided to take the bus to Canada, and, in retrospect, that was somewhat of a mistake. Windsor was a bit of a hole, one that actually made us want to get back to Detroit. Getting back to Detroit turned into a challenge in itself, first with the bus being over a half hour late, and then with customs. Everyone else passed through quickly. Lisa and I… didn’t.

“Identification?”

I handed him my driver’s license.

“Proof of citizenship?”

“That’s what I have.”

“All this proves to me is that you drive in Minnesota.”

I didn’t have much of an excuse. “We weren’t planning on going to Canada.”

“Where were you born?”

“______ _____, Wisconsin.”

“Why were you in Canada?”

“We went over this evening for the heck of it.”

“Why are you in Detroit.”

“We’re on vacation.”

Long pause. “Think about what you just said. Who vacations in Detroit?”

“Well, I do.”

“Why?”

“I’m an architecture nerd.”

“That’s the only good reason. Is the Thunderbird Hotel still in Minneapolis?”

When Lisa was asked why we were vacationing in Detroit, she replied “because my boyfriend is obsessed with it.”

So, Detroit has actually been pretty fun. Or, at least it was until the bolt incident, which exposed one of the primary ways Detroit lacks as a city. Just about any other major city I’m familiar with lacking a car could at worst be an annoyance. In Detroit, you’re pretty much fucked if you don’t want to spend a lot of money on cab fares. Tomorrow morning will be an early one, as we make the trek to the only tire store the concierge was able to find that would be open tomorrow. It’s almost 15 miles north of here. Dammit.

Anyway, the drive down from Mackinaw City was pretty painless, except for the cruise control shorting out and killing the car in the process. (We were able to revive the car. No such luck with the cruise control.) I’d wondered how I’d introduce Detroit to Lisa, and in the end decided to drive in Woodward from the Davison Freeway. It turned out to be a good way of doing things, as Lisa was able to see both the devastation and signs of hope that mark the city. Vacant lots on one side and burned out buildings on the other one block, then tasteful restorations and new condos on the next. Hope, destruction, and back again, ad infinitum.

We settled in at the Renaissance Center and grabbed the People Mover to Greektown, a block-and-a-half strip with a lot of restaurants. As we paid our bill our server learned that we weren’t from Detroit. His response was kind of typical of what we got from the locals here: “So, do you think Detroit is as bad as everyone says it is?” Lisa responded that she didn’t think it was, and the server launched into a short speech on how he had to defend it to his family and convince his mom that the area he lived wasn’t, you know, all that bad.

Today we started by wandering around the downtown and had lunch at the Hockeytown Cafe. (Hey, we’re tourists, and everything else was closed.) When the rains came we retreated to the Detroit Institute of Arts, which despite showing an extremely limited portion of their collection due to renovations, was still an interesting and worthwhile visit. From there we embarked on a short tour that was going to take us around Tiger Stadium, Michigan Central and Belle Isle before heading to some of the more interesting suburbs for dinner. The bolt made it’s introduction at Michigan Central, and the evening went downhill after that.

Lisa noticed Michigan Central well before we left Tiger Stadium. “Oh my god, what building is that?” It seems to have that kind of effect on a lot of people. Standing in front of the station, a fantastically beautiful yet utterly destroyed piece of architecture, we watched four other groups drive up and do the same thing we were doing: Look, point, and probably wonder how the hell something like that is allowed to happen.

The front of the building probably would’ve been enough, but no, I had to show Lisa where the sheds used to be located. That’s when the tire got fucked up. You’d think Detroit, with it’s obsession with cars, would have at least one 24-hour tire place, but no. We got a hold of a number of towing companies, but they all just changed tires, not replaced tires.

It was kind of sad to see Tiger Stadium again, knowing that it’ll probably be gone the next time I’m here. It’s a great stadium, and deserves a better fate than demolition, be it partial or otherwise.

Well, it’s getting late, and now we have errands we have to do tomorrow. Mackinac Island will have to wait for some other time.

The next entry may be from Indiana. Or from Wisconsin. Or maybe a Sears Auto Center in suburban Detroit.

More later.

Last night the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, this evening the lower. We’re at a KOA just outside Mackinaw City, a glorified hotel strip for those wishing to visit the island. Tomorrow we become one of the masses, crowding onto some boat for a 20-minute ride to what has been dubbed by many as a mecca for horseshit and fudge.

Today was a good day. After leaving Iron Mountain this morning, I did some quick backtracking so Lisa could get her photo by the Michigan welcome sign, and so I could figure out where I’d made a wrong turn on the way to the hotel the night before. From there we made decent time to Marquette, where we planned on spending a couple of hours but instead spent five. We found both of my old homes, and in one case inadvertently met the current residents, who came storming out at the sight of my camera.

“What are you doing!?”

“Sorry, I used to live here.”

With that the broke out smiles and waved. “Oh, okay!”

We also found the car dealership my dad used to manage, so I stopped to call and let him know where we were. A 15-minute conversation ensued, which eventually led to me going inside to see if some of his former coworkers were still there. In both cases they still were, over 25 years after my family had made its move south to Wisconsin.

I’m astounded that I’ve been with my current employer six years. I can’t imagine a decade, much less a quarter century.

Other than that, we spent some time out at Presque Isle, a fantastic park just north of Marquette, and some general bumming around. (Lisa got to see her first Michigan left, too.) I’m amazed at how much is the same as it was in 1982. Many buildings, stores and businesses were exactly as they were when we left. Heck, TV6 Marquette is still using the same logo as it did when we lived up there.

Before coming here I told Lisa that in some ways Michigan is a state where the past has made it to the present more fully formed than in other places in the country. She saw that today, whether it be the state trooper cars with the old-fashioned bubble machines, the traffic and street lights hung on wires over the streets, or the numerous old-school industries. In a way, Marquette is an extreme example, albeit one I’m very fond of.

The drive down to Mackinaw City was a bit long but generally scenic. (Lisa liked the bridge more than I expected.) We had some difficulty finding a place to eat this evening, but after one failed attempt at one restaurant finally found a partially-crowded pizza place (just about the only thing open after 10:00) that turned out to be reasonably good.

Well, it’s getting late, and we have a packed day ahead of us tomorrow, so I’m going to turn in. The next entry will likely be from Detroit.

More later.

Friday morning. We’re in Iron Mountain, at an old HoJo next to a mobile home park. The drive out last night was OK, although longer than expected due to some horrific traffic in the Twin Cities. In a few minutes we’re off to Marquette, and then Mackinaw City.

I’m still trying to figure out how best to introduce Lisa to Detroit. Take the Interstate right to downtown? Or maybe drive down Woodward? I probably won’t figure that out until we’re a half hour or so outside the city, but that would be consistent with the level of planning I’ve done for this trip.

And we’re off. More later.

Saturday evening in Boston. Today was a fantastic day for ducks. Unfortunately for Lisa and I, we’re human, so today’s inch of rainfall kind of sucked. Overall, we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather on this trip, so I guess a couple of days lost to rain at the end isn’t really something to complain about.We did try to get out and see the city today, with limited success. We did a bit of a university tour, hitting Harvard and MIT. Lisa was underwhelmed with the Harvard campus, and neither of us found MIT too interesting. Of course it’s good that they’re focusing on brain power rather that campus design, but in the case of MIT, I don’t know how anyone would look at the campus and say, hey, that’s where I want to study urban planning.

This evening we tried heading down to Tremont Street to find something to eat, but despite our umbrellas and rain gear we were both soaked within our first minutes walking around. We eventually gave up and retreated to our hotel and to room service. We have a few hours around town tomorrow before we have to fly out, so hopefully we’ll see something. Lisa did get enough of a taste of Boston to want to visit it again, so there will probably be another trip here in our future.

As far as Maine and Acadia, we got a lot of rain there, too, but it didn’t really have the negative affect the weather has had on Boston. We managed to get our tent set up during a brief break in the weather, and from there were able to manage the day with rain gear and well-timed car trips. Yesterday brought somewhat of an ill-advised at a whale-watching boat trip, which ate a lot of time, and mostly consisted of fog. And a log. (We did see a whale. Kind of.) Also, there were people puking everywhere, kind of like that one scene in Drop Dead Gorgeous, only without all the would-be glamour queens.

But I digress. Acadia was beautiful. Lisa really liked it, too, and we’ll have to make another visit if we ever get around to that Maine/Atlantic Provinces trip.

Well, it’s getting late, and we want to get to bed early so we can get an early start tomorrow. Tomorrow night it’s back to Minneapolis, and on Monday it’s back to work.

More later.