I recently meandered to Cleveland, Ohio, for a work trip. We stopped for lunch at the West Side Market. If you’re ever in Cleveland, it’s worth the experience. For a fully balanced diet, fruits and veggies can be found in the building next door.
Travel
Yooper Duane
My friend Duane
My meanderings last week took me Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, also known as “da UP.” Residents of the U.P. are affectionately known as Yoopers, and I visited a long-time Yooper friend, Duane.
Duane and I met thirty years ago on Isle Royale National Park (abbreviated in Park Service talk as ISRO). The island is one of the most isolated national parks in the country – only accessible by boat or sea plane. Duane was a carpenter for the park service and we became friends over coffee and doughnuts in the snack bar when I was a waitress on ISRO.
I’ve kept in touch with only a few people from my time on the island. Even Duane and I had long stretches where we lost track of each other. I managed to track him down a few years ago when I knew I’d be driving by his town for a book tour.
During my trip last week, we only had time for lunch. I wish our visit was longer, but I had to press home to a long list of responsibilities. But the time we were able to spend was vintage Yooper. Duane took me to Buck’s Café in downtown Ishpeming, and he wore the requisite Yooper regalia (see photo).
I expected to reach home by nightfall, but car issues forced an overnight stay at the edge of Yooperland (the MI/WI border). I found a mom and pop hotel complete with mouse droppings on the bedspread. But the mice stayed hidden, I slept well, and was able to successfully continue my journey home the next day.
Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for the short taste of Yooper heaven, Duane!
Revisiting 9/11
Presque Isle Beach in Erie, Penn.
This week, I travelled back to the place I was thirteen years ago when 9/11 happened. I didn’t have much of a choice – the travel was for a work conference – the same event I was attending on Sept. 11, 2001. It was a regional conference held in Erie, Penn. At least we are at a different hotel this time. Even so, the idea of going back there made me irrationally worried that a similar disaster would happen.
Back on 9/11, we were in the middle of our three-day conference when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center building. The organizers stopped the meeting. Some of us watched news reports in the hotel bar and lobby. Others went to their rooms. Several colleagues from New York made frantic calls to their loved ones back home.
I was in my room with my roommate watching TV when the second plane hit the second tower. After the horror subsided and our brains started functioning, we thought about the implications. Not having loved ones in New York, our worries revolved around “How are we going to fly home tomorrow?” Realizing that flying was going to be impossible, I got on the phone to see if we could rent a vehicle. They were already all reserved.
We had five people from Minnesota who needed to get home. I had young sons and a husband who needed me. Intermixed in the newscasts was the report of the Pentagon plane crash. Then came the news of the downed plane in Stonycreek Township, Penn., only 200 miles south of us. That made us much more nervous – the site was so near.
The moment I heard about the Pennsylvania plane crash, something clicked in my head, and I told my roommate that the passengers must have heard what had happened to the other planes. They weren’t going to let the hijackers crash their plane into some significant national site. Turns out, that’s indeed what happened.
Like everyone else, we ran through a lot of feelings in the next few days: incredible heaviness of heart, fear, and a sense of desperation mixed with the desire to help others and make it through. (I find myself shaking just writing this.)
We made it home the next day, with the help of some colleagues from Ohio who drove us to Cleveland, where a rental van was available. Then came the long haul home (15 hours? 17?)
During those first few days after 9/11, I felt like I was living in an apocalyptic Stephen King novel – no planes in the sky, gas at a premium, uncertainty running rampant among the populace. It’s not fun living in a Stephen King novel. Things eventually got back to “normal,” but of course, we and the rest of the country were changed. But here I was, thirteen years later, going back to Erie for a conference again.
It didn’t help that I watched the movie “Gravity,” the night before leaving for Erie this time. If I had known beforehand about the sense of desperation and peril that pervades that movie, I would not have watched it. A woman alone, trying to make it back “home,” hit too close to home. (Pun intended.)
Things went well at the conference, and I thought the new events were erasing the 9/11 strangeness until it came time to go back home. Like Sandra Bullock in “Gravity,” it took me several tries and different modes of transportation to compete the feat, which put me right back into those 9/11 feelings. However, unlike Bullock, at least I had a breathable atmosphere.
The weirdness started after the conference when a group of us decided to spend several free hours at a nearby beach on Presque Isle. A friend and I separated from the rest of the group to hike to a bird observation platform. The hike through the woods was hot and muddy. Once reaching the platform, we decided to return to the others by walking on the beach. We soon discovered that Lake Erie beaches are not like the beaches we are used to in Minnesota, where you can often walk unimpeded. This beach was eroded in many spots. Fallen trees and brush blocked our path, which necessitated inland bushwhacking forays — sometimes following deer trails, sometimes left to our own devices. The bushes had thorns, and our progress was slow.
We began to worry that we wouldn’t make it back to the others by the appointed time to leave. Having no map, we weren’t exactly sure how far we had to go or where we were in relationship to any civilized outposts. We started second-guessing our decisions, but that subsided once we saw familiar landmarks. Bramble-scratched, we made it back to the group in time to head for our respective planes.
The group dropped me off at the Erie Airport and went their merry way to Cleveland to catch their plane. As I stood in the ticketing line and looked at the flight departure schedule, I noticed the word “CANCELLED” next to my flight. Not good.
The ticketing agent explained the flight had been cancelled due to bad weather. They couldn’t get me out that day or the next from Erie, but if I could make it to Cleveland, I could take a flight tomorrow. I called my colleagues who turned around and rescued me from being stranded in Erie. With four of us smooshed in the back seat, we made the 100-mile journey to Cleveland.
Dropped off at the Cleveland Airport, my next goal was to find a place to stay the night. Because my flight was cancelled due to weather, the airlines said they were not required to pay for my extra night’s stay, so I was on my own. Like Sandra Bullock, trying to reach the Chinese space station on the radio, I desperately called different numbers, trying to find a hotel. No luck. The city was booked for the night (if one can believe the five places I reached).
By this time, it was 7:30 p.m. I was tired and hungry, having only an apple to eat since breakfast. Unable to reach my home office for help with a reservation due to tornados knocking out the phone system, and with my cell phone battery dying, I made a reservation with a place about 40 miles away in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
After a $90 cab ride, I sank into a soft bed and ordered room service. I awoke at 4:15 a.m. to catch a cab back to Cleveland. My flight left with no problems, until we got to Minneapolis. Lightning strikes kept us from taxiing to the gateway for about 20 minutes – the very time my connecting flight home was supposed to leave. After sprint through the airport (okay, more like a computer-and-book-laden trot), I discovered my home flight was still at the gate, also delayed by the storm.
I made it home, and better yet, so did my baggage. Will I ever return to Erie again? Did Sandra Bullock’s character ever go into space again? I don’t think so.
Sea Cave Pilgrimage
Icicles hanging down from the ceiling of a sea cave.
Icelanders resembled Minnesotans (at least of the last generation) in this regard: if nature has condemned you to life in a continuously foul climate, you have no choice but to ignore it and proceed with your plans. If you wait for the weather to improve before doing anything, your bones will have crumbled to fine dust. – Minnesota author Bill Holm
Despite the National Park Service urging people to visit another day because the wind chill was twenty-five below, my son and some friends traveled to the sea caves in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore last weekend. We weren’t the only ones disobeying the feds to see this natural wonder on the south shore of Lake Superior. Since the parking lot was full, a line of cars was already parked on the main highway. This added ten minutes to the twenty-minute walk we were expecting across the ice to the sea caves.
It was no mean feat just to get this far. My son, who is a teenager, and his friend, would have much rather stayed home on the couch, little balls wrapped in comforters, playing computer games. “Why do we have to go?” They challenged more than once. After about the fifth round of such questioning, I was reduced to, “Because you’ll have fun, dammit!”
Once they were off the couch came the trial of getting them to wear more than one layer of clothing. Exhortations about how cold it was were met with more, “Then why do we have to go?” Somehow, the mother of my son’s friend (Charlotte) and I got the boys dressed and into the car. The wind direction made the walk from our car to the lake the coldest part of the trip. Charlotte and I were surreptitiously looking at each other, questioning whether this adventure was wise, and, although they would never admit it, I could tell the boys were happy they had been forced to wear so many layers.
Once we got to the lake, we joined the others on a hard-trodden snowy path along the shore. With the wind at our backs, the sunshine helped us feel warmer in spirit than perhaps in body. After about half-a-mile into the mile-long walk, I marveled at how warm my feet were. I thought my toes would be the first to go.
We were joined by snowshoers, skiers, dog walkers, and people pulling sleds containing mounds of blankets, which, from the hats sticking out of them, must have contained children. For the most part, it was too cold to talk, so we walked in silence – pilgrims on our way to see a natural wonder denied us for five years due to poor ice conditions.
Walking on the winter ice is the easiest way for most people to see the caves. In the summer, it requires kayaking or canoeing skills, or paying the price for a tour boat. A hiking trail runs along the top of the caves, but the view is nowhere near as spectacular as from the water.
I had seen the caves from water level, but never in winter. This year, the formations were more intricate and extensive than most, prompting widespread media coverage that piqued interest by the masses, including Charlotte and me.
Before you venture to the caves, it’s a good idea to check with the Lakeshore’s Facebook page and check the Sea Cave Watch website, a Wisconsin Sea Grant project. The site features real-time images of the ice conditions at the caves, although the wave sensor has been pulled for the season.
A frozen waterfall.
When we reached the start of the caves, the boys were quickly taken in by opportunities to explore. Icy nooks, frozen waterfalls, tunnels, slides, and hidden alcoves proved irresistible. When it came time to go due to a commitment back home, they protested, saying they wanted to stay longer. I couldn’t help but smile, noting their change in attitude. Nature had worked its subtle magic.
I hope the lesson is lasting and that next time, it will be easier to tear my son or his friend away from their comfortable couches and computers to experience real life.
One thing I want to mention if you go: please don’t break off the icicles from the caves. The conditions that formed them are not likely to happen again this winter, and it ruins the formations for those who will come after you. Take away memories, not icicles!
The view of Lake Superior when you turn away from the caves.
Sunrise and resort chairs, Lake Michigan.
I took this shot one early morning last week when I was visiting Lake Michigan for a conference. All I had to do to get it was walk out the patio door of my room in Sheboygan. Actually, I ran — the sun was rising fast.
The Gaelic Soul
I drove 6 hours (one way) this weekend for a St. Patrick’s Day Party. What could possess an avowed introvert to do that? I believe it was my Gaelic soul.
On my mother’s side, I’m English/Scottish/Irish (with a rumor of Native American). On my father’s side, I’m German. But it’s the Irish/Scottish soul that I identify with the most. I had 12 hours to think about this during my car ride.
Why doesn’t the English part of me resonate? I suspect it’s because England is too civilized. I visited the U.K. when I was 10 (left my appendix in London by accident). England impressed me with its royalty, cities, and groomed farmsteads: a landscaped tamed.
On the same trip, an ancestral tour of sorts, Germany impressed me with its order and the purposeful energy of its people. But neither England or Germany were for me. I recall thinking then (over 3 decades ago – I will not disclose exactly how many decades!), that if I returned, I would like most to revisit Ireland and Scotland.
I suspect this is because they have some wildness left in them, and that stirs my soul. This wildness causes people to depend more closely on each other than does a civilized landscape. It causes a certain kind of camaraderie not found in other places.
I’ve also noticed this interdependence in Newfoundland, Canada. Of course, the Irish brought their culture to Newfoundland, but it’s something more; a dependence of people on one another brought about by harsh conditions.
I recently watched the latest James Bond movie, “Skyfall.” The end of it is set in Scotland, in Mr. Bond’s childhood home – a stark grey stone mansion set in a remote moor. Although Mr. Bond claims to “never have liked the place,” I found myself inwardly cringing as it was shot up and set aflame. Its wild setting and stonework seemed ideal to me.
I suspect the Irish and Scottish in me overrules my other genetic makeup. Somehow, I inherited that soul more than the others. Who knows how this happens? All I know is that when I hear an Irish fiddle or bagpipes, there’s no force that can keep me from moving. I adore contra-dancing (like square dancing or line dancing but with a Gaelic bent) and ceili dancing.
And I would drive 6 hours when I had the opportunity to attend a bona-fide St. Patrick’s Day party with many friends and co-workers, complete with a blessing by a Catholic priest, bad jokes, and good music.
Slainte!
Marie's Meanderings 