Displaced Midwesterner(s) Show Yourselves
ih...@vaxb.acs.unt.edu
Last week I read a very fitting tribute to the great-lakes area regarding the
weather this time of year. Since I will not be returning to the area until
Christmas break, I would appreciate any other elaborate descriptions of the
scenery possible.
(Does someone sound a bit homesick?)
Thanks y'all (that word really bugs me)
Doug
IH50@UNTVAX
Rebecca M Hendrick
>Greetings to other displaced midwesterner types.
>Last week I read a very fitting tribute to the great-lakes area regarding the
>weather this time of year. Since I will not be returning to the area until
>Christmas break, I would appreciate any other elaborate descriptions of the
>scenery possible.
>
>(Does someone sound a bit homesick?)
>
Elaborate descriptions; hmmmmm........ How about:
You're driving along M35 between Marinette and Escanaba in the U.P. which
runs right next to Lake Michigan. It's January so it's about 20d F and
there is about 6" of snow on the ground. Because the Lake is so shallow
there, it's frozen but not smoothly frozen. There are a lot of peaks and
valleys in the ice that are covered with snow giving it an eerie white
moonscape susrface. It's a clear and crisp dusk with the sun setting
on your left and slightly behind you, with a big full, orange moon
rising on your right and slightly in front of you. You can't see the sun
setting because of all the hardwoods and pines, but you can see the moon
rising because it's over the frozen snow covered lake. You get the
feeling that if there were two moons you'd be on a different planet
than earth. You continue driving on your way up to Lake Superior with
the sun setting and the moon rising. The moon lights your way as you
listen to your favorite tapes.
I have lots more, but that's my favorite.
becca
Doug Ritter
When I was a kid, I couldn't *wait* to get out of the 'midwest'. Now, you
couldn't drag me away with a team of wild horses. Don't get me wrong, I
enjoy visiting other places, but the key word is *visiting*! I've been to
Texas . . . you have my sincere sympathy! ;) (that's a *joke*! See the
smiley? ;);););)!
So here is a story from the Chicago Tribune you might enjoy. The only fault
is that the author apparently doesn't like winter! IMHO, winter is the best
season of the year! And as for the snowmobile season being a 'blight', as
he calls it, he's obviously never been on a sled in the middle of the
Nicolette NF on a sunny, cold winter day!
BTW, you can get subscriptions to most newspapers anywhere in the world.
They will be late (a week or two by mail), but it's still enjoyable to read
about home.
Copyright (c) 1991 Chicago Tribune Company; Chicago Tribune October 6, 1991,
Sunday, FINAL EDITION
Midwest best - From Traverse City to Cheboygan - Michigan's most scenic drive
By Robert Cross, Chicago Tribune
Cheboygan, Mich.
Before arctic winds snap the leaves off the trees, bringing on the blight of
snowmobile season, an excursion by car on certain northern Michigan highways
and country roads helps the difficult adjustment from lazy days at the beach to
slush-flooded pavement.
This drive is scenic, manageable, varied and vaguely nostalgic, and I can't
imagine any other in the Midwest quite so attractive. It winds from Traverse
City to Cheboygan, although some wandering souls could just as well go
farther, and the impatient might want to stop far short of here. But no one
should skip one essential leg of the journey, the restful, care-cleansing
and visually stunning Michigan Highway 119.
A strip of two-lane asphalt 27 miles long, Highway 119 traces a lazy curve
around a knoblike projection of Michigan's lower peninsula, just south of the
convergence of Lakes Michigan and Huron. That route is the center jewel in a
setting of major thoroughfares and county roads that combine great beauty with
just enough of the bizarre and tacky to supply human context.
The best drive in the Midwest must start on U.S. Highway 31 in Traverse City,
even though it seethes with motels, resorts, cabin compounds, franchise
restaurants and gas stations. Yet that inauspicious beginning is crucial,
because every major route in the northern Michigan vacationland crosses it.
I picked Cheboygan as the logical terminus for this trip because its rolling
farmland and attractive waters tend to counterbalance the urbanized,
tourist-heavy towns encountered elsewhere. Besides, I was born in Cheboygan and
later spent childhood summers there. I hadn't returned in at least two decades,
so I felt compelled to see it again.
Nostalgia and my own singular curiosity helped write this itinerary, I confess.
Still, any traveler ideally harbors a few personal reasons for covering
considerable distance.
So, the drive that lights my own ignition starts on U.S. 31 in Traverse City
with a loop on Michigan Highway 37 around the slender Old Mission Peninsula.
That 20-mile, brain-clearing excursion on Michigan 37 serves two useful purposes.
It immediately whisks one away from the hurly-burly of Traverse City, which has
become a sort of Great Lakes Orlando, and it sets the slow tempo necessary to
enjoy this ride. Any halfway intent driver could cover the entire route in less
than a day, but I recommend at least three days, or even a week.
Old Mission whispers of micro-agriculture, orchards, secluded coves, sheltered
harbors and a township beach that winemaker Ed O'Keefe insists "is as good as
anything in Bermuda."
O'Keefe created the Chateau Grand Traverse Winery & Vineyards in 1974,
bulldozing an unexceptional clearing on Old Mission's spine until it became
a series of hills and deep valleys where his European vinifera vines could
take in the unusual air and sunshine that makes his part of the state friendly
to grape growing.
Environmental issue
O'Keefe led me up a hill where ancient oaks obscured an excellent view. "I'm
thinking about cutting those trees down, maybe building an inn, chalet-style,"
he said. A conservationist would bristle at the notion; a stranger coming along
after the chalet had been built might gasp at the panorama.
This sort of tension between guardians of nature and captains of commerce
permeates northern Michigan, as it must in all fragile locales with leisure for
sale, but at least on Old Mission, small as it is, one can sense that limits
have been reached.
Commercialism on the peninsula tends toward the unobtrusive, with a sprinkling
of services like the informal and eclectic pub-restaurant-gallery called Old
Mission Tavern. It boasts that it's the only establishment around where you
can get "a beer, a borscht and a watercolor to go."
Certainly, it's the only such place so close to the epicenter of the temperate
zone. Up the road, near the picturesque 1870s lighthouse at Old Mission Point,
a sign informs us, "You are now standing on the 45th parallel, or halfway
between the North Pole and the Equator."
Michigan 37 leads back to U.S. 31, Traverse City's main drag, and I took it
north out of town - slowly. I wanted to work up an appetite and stall progress
until dinnertime, so I played a round of golf at Antrim Dells in Atwood.
Northern Michigan has become something of a Midwestern golf capital, where
players benefit from the rolling hills and diverting scenery, even as
conservationists, again, deplore the manicuring of wild terrain and the
displacement of wetlands with fairways. The best courses, though, tend to use
existing pastures or force golfers to make their way through natural clearings
in the pine groves. Antrim Dells does both.
Duly frustrated and hungry, I turned east off U.S. 31 and took Charlevoix
County Highway 48 to Ellsworth, where two of the finest restaurants in the
region battle for the gourmet dollar in an unlikely rural setting. The
surrounding area was devoid of traffic, as most small towns are at suppertime,
but the renowned Tapawingo already had been completely booked on this weekday
evening and the reservation list of neighboring Rowe Inn was filling up fast.
A memorable meal
Both use local game, livestock and vegetables in dishes prepared with
European sophistication. At the Country French Rowe Inn that evening, surrounded
by warm paneling and basking in a dusky sunset that turned the adjoining fields
into Monets, I enjoyed a pheasant en papillote, accompanied by a savory bouquet
of Michigan vegetables and exquisite little bulgar-wheat rolls.
Chef Kathy Ruis told me she had grown up in the area and learned many of her
skills working over the years for owner Wes Westhoven, who bought the inn 19
years ago and converted it from a family-style place to a temple of haute
cuisine.
In 1984, another associate, Harlan Peterson, left and opened his own
restaurant, Tapawingo (Chippewa for "place of peace"), with an equally ambitious
"modern American" menu. "Ellsworth has become kind of a destination for dining,"
Ruis said proudly.
That night at the Rowe Inn, filled as I was with pheasant, pecan-stuffed
morel mushrooms (they grow wild in the nearby woods) and delicious fresh
blackberry cobbler, I found it difficult to get up from the candlelit table for
the drive back to U.S. 31 and the trip to Charlevoix.
Largely a resort town now, Charlevoix shows few signs that it was once a
major shipping, fishing and lumbering center. One must play tourist here. I
stowed the car in a motel parking lot - skipping the charms and inconvenience of
the several bed-and-breakfasts that dot the petunia-lined residential streets.
Communities like Charlevoix can lure the traveler for days on end. A ferry
shuttles visitors to Beaver Island, 2 1/2 hours away; fishing charters line the
marina, overshadowed by the 180-foot Coast Guard cutter Acacia; beaches beckon
from the feet of imposing bluffs; a smokehouse stands ready to fill picnic
baskets with succulent whitefish.
A tourist treat
At the north end of Bridge Street, the eponymous bascule span opens every
half hour to release the impressive fleets of yachts and excursion boats
traversing the channel that links Round Lake and Lake Charlevoix to Lake
Michigan. Hordes of yogurt-licking, fudge-chewing tourists, desperate for
action, seem to relish this spectacle. Nobody leaves until the sun has made its
flamboyant departure past the channel lighthouse.
The next morning, I followed county routes 56 and 71, with a jog on Michigan
Highway 75, attempting a self-guided tour of Hemingway Country. Ernest
Hemingway spent his boyhood summers on Horton Bay at Lake Charlevoix and on the
shores of Walloon Lake. The country store where he bought supplies still stands,
but few other traces. These are the days of short memories and long ambition.
After Michigan poet-novelist Jim Harrison drove this route, which served as
the setting for most of Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, he wrote in Esquire
Magazine: "The area is still beautiful, green and hilly with a vernal juiciness
that reminds one of the Lake Country in England. But it's hard to identify the
landscape with the woods, swamps and rivers where Nick Adams played Injun, and
endured the rites de passage that Hemingway wrote so cleanly about. Not, anyway,
when you see a million-dollar condominium peeking through the woods like some
sort of fey Rotarian Xanadu."
Another 15 miles on Michigan 75 and U.S. 131 leads to Petoskey and the
beginning of a stretch of wealthy enclaves enjoying the best views of Little
Traverse Bay that money can buy. Fortunately, everybody, propertied or not, gets
access to the scenery, because the rich built their houses high on the bluffs
remaining from that time, 360 million years ago, when coral reefs grew in the
salt-water sea that covered the entire Midwest.
An ancient view
From gemlike Sunset View Park, one can look westward toward the main body of
the big lake and take in a scene much like the one commanded by Ottawa chief
Pe-to-se-ga of the Bear River band. The trees were thicker then, before the
lumbermen came, and the area had to be considerably quieter. A succession of
French Jesuit and Presbyterian missionaries, a summer colony of Methodists,
lumber barons and vacationing Midwestern industrialists gradually changed the
pristine wilderness into a leisuretime and mercantile paradise.
Quaint houses - Victorian "painted ladies" worthy of San Francisco - spread
their verandas in adjoining Bay View, an old-fashioned neighborhood where
strollers look out-of-place without bonnets, parasols and high-button shoes.
Beyond Petoskey, glorious Michigan Highway 119 begins, wheeling around the
beaches of charming Petoskey State Park to Harbor Springs. More wealth. More
cunning emporiums. I sat beneath an umbrella on Dudley's Deck, ate a steak salad
and watched strollers gawk at the haughty vessels berthed in the marina.
In most of Harbor Springs, tourists are welcome to observe the patricians at
play. Where the harbor hooks into the bay, however, an iron gate permits only
a glimpse of the summer mansions beyond. Although old Detroit money built those
piles, cars have been banned from the compound and residents ride horsedrawn
taxis.
The fabled "tunnel of trees" on Michigan 119 begins on the outskirts of
Harbor Springs and twists its way toward the Straits of Mackinac. It needn't be
traveled at posted speed limits; traffic is infrequent and the splendors of this
natural dappled-light show are best enjoyed with frequent stops at some of the
regularly spaced turnoffs.
On the northern route
I like to take a northerly direction on Michigan 119 with the sun fairly low
in the western sky. Black-and-white tree trunks make a strobe light of the sky
and deep blue water on my left, while a wall of forest darkens the right.
Overhead, oak, maple, birch and cedar branches form an unbroken arch often
likened to the nave of a cathedral.
That comparison seems too hushed and reverent. If people hadn't cut a path
through them, the trees would have no reason to arch over anything. The
spectacular effect must be attributed, at least in part, to highway engineering.
Yet Michigan 119 never fails to toss a veil of tranquility over the most
jangled nerves.
Along the way, I spent part of the afternoon decompressing in the Thorne
Swift Nature Preserve near Harbor Springs, a 30-acre sampler of pre-condo
Michigan, where the rare Pitcher's thistle and Lake Huron tansy grow. The
preserve feels untouched, almost like a shore life diorama, where dunes meet
wetlands and wetlands meet birch, cedar, balsam, willow and trembling aspen.
Flitting through the branches are the kinds of birds seldom seen from the
tree-vaulted highway, including the pileated woodpecker (among this country's
largest) and the saw-whet owl.
A honky-tonk is the last thing one might expect to see at the end of Michigan
119's leafy chute in Cross Village, but just as the big trees give way to big
sky, the bouldered edifice of Legs Inn looms on the left. At some point in the
state's history, long before the lumber harvests, one can imagine a settler
looking around and thinking, "What are we going to do with all this wood?" Legs
Inn provides one answer.
Its vast interior goes far beyond eclectic into the neighborhood of Decor
Anarchy, with gnarled driftwood archways, log walls, shellacked beams, phone
booths in hollow tree trunks, oak-slab tables, totem pole pillars, mooseheads,
stuffed owls and rough-burled doors.
Barroom jumps
Most weekend nights, the large barroom with its polished (wooden) dance floor
romps and stomps with music from combos, such as the locally popular Jelly Roll
Blues Band out of Boyne City. All afternoon and well into evening, the kitchen
puts out home-style food, which includes an extensive line of Polish specialties
honoring the memory of Legs founder Stanley Smolak.
An immigrant auto worker, Smolak left Detroit in the '20s and settled in
Cross Village, where he made friends with the resident Ottawas and learned from
them how to build with found materials - including, presumably, the rows of
chair legs that sprout from the roof and account for the inn's name. Out back,
the kitsch gives way to a restful yard overlooking Lake Michigan. An alfresco
lunch in that setting reinstates beauty and peace, while reminding us what trees
look like before they can be rendered cute.
More natural wonder lies a few hundred yards up the road at Wilderness State
Park, where the point of Sturgeon Bay provides a pleasant horseshoe beach and
gestures toward the Straits of Mackinac. Michigan 119 peters out at that
juncture, and I took up the slack with Emmet County Highway 81, which meanders
past campgrounds, hiking trails, a golf course and picnic areas toward
Mackinaw City.
This haven for vacationers is so laden with tourist amenities it seems as if
the northernmost tip of the lower peninsula comes perilously close to breaking
off from the sheer weight of it all. Perhaps the load would snap off a portion
of the immense Mackinac Bridge and dam up the straits with key chains, T-shirts,
fudge, Korean-made moccasins, vacancy signs, buckskin fanny packs and Chevy
Blazers.
From the foot of Mackinaw City's Central Avenue, where no one should suffer
cotton-candy deficiency, ferries make regular runs to pretty and carless
Mackinac Island, returning with frazzled passengers nursing leg cramps and
saddle sores.
Into the 18th Century
The authentically reconstructed Ft. Michilimackinac at the foot of the bridge
sweeps visitors back to the 18th Century, when French and British forces
bickered over the fur trade and the French built the fort to keep the British
out. By 1760, the British succeeded in chasing away the French, but a 1763
massacre, led by Chief Pontiac, marred their reign.
Today, the fort is a model of modern museum management, with costumed
personnel frequently demonstrating artillery maneuvers and craft techniques. It
was a dusty, dreary place when I visited as a kid but the annual family junket
to Mackinaw City and on to Mackinac Island was always the highlight of the
summer.
Still, I decided to spend the final night in Cheboygan, about 20 miles south
on U.S. Highway 23, before calling it a journey. The scenic Black and Cheboygan
Rivers contribute to Cheboygan's standing as a popular boating and fishing
center. The lakes nearby still offer week-at-the-cottage experiences, and the
rustic Hack-Ma-Tack Inn continues to satisfy prime-rib and whitefish devotees,
as it has for more than half a century. But, of course, my reasons for going
there were personal.
I discovered that the town's Best Western stands across the street from the
same County Hospital that stamped my birth certificate. I couldn't resist the
karma of that, so I checked in and then hurried to the scene of fond boyhood
memories. And there I found it in the waning daylight, Aloha State Park on
Mullett Lake, where my grandparents had operated a little grocery store and I
had idled away long summer days on the dock, hoping the bluegills would bite.
As one might expect, the old frame grocery had been renovated into a
residence and replaced by a cinderblock convenience store. The dock, however,
remained. I sat on it for a while, filling my nostrils with the scent of wood
preservative, replenishing an olfactory memory that has remained with me always.
Later, I know, I'll be waiting for the L in Chicago and that same perfume
will drift up from the wooden platform, transporting me to Michigan, its lakes
and its wonderfully forested highways before the A train can get me.
--
===============================================================================
Douglas N. Ritter Hoch und stiel leben!
do...@meaddata.com
..!uunet!meaddata!dougr No, I'm not speaking for MDC!
THEODORE FABIAN
well, here in Cleveland Ohio, the leaves are in their "classic" state..
there are beautiful shades of red, yellow, orange, green, and brown on
all of the trees... the Metroparks and scenes on the sides of Interstates
71 and 480 are breathtaking..
the other night, I was driving northbound on I71 toward downtown, about
10 miles south of downtown actually... it was just before sunset.. the
sky took on an undescribable orangish color to the west, and a contrasting
blacking blue to the east... together with the leaves, it was such a
nice sight, that I wish I could have captured it on film... the whole
thing lasted maybe 4 minutes.. I covered about 4 miles in the time, and
by that point, it was too dark..
together with nice sunny days in the 70s, it's really hard to believe
it's the end of October...
sadly, the colors are beginning to fade noticably on the leaves... if you
want to see them you better hurry...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Thanks,
Ted Fabian NASA Lewis Research Center
Cleveland, Ohio 44135
tpf...@tm0006.lerc.nasa.gov
/pn=theodore.fabian/admd=telemail/prmd=lerc/c=us/@x400.msfc.nasa.gov
Disclaimer: My Opinions are My Own, not NASA's.....
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Campbell
>In article <1991Oct24...@vaxb.acs.unt.edu> ih...@vaxb.acs.unt.edu writes:
>>Greetings to other displaced midwesterner types.
>runs right next to Lake Michigan. It's January so it's about 20d F and
>there is about 6" of snow on the ground. Because the Lake is so shallow
>there, it's frozen but not smoothly frozen. There are a lot of peaks and
>valleys in the ice that are covered with snow giving it an eerie white
You forgot...
And just then, you hit a long patch of ice. Your car goes skidding off
into an 8' snow bank and you hit your head. Nobody sees you again until
they pull your rotting corpse out of the snow bank next Spring.
Oh yeah..forgot, that's between Munising and Marquette.
Sandra Loosemore
And just then, you hit a long patch of ice. Your car goes skidding off
into an 8' snow bank and you hit your head. Nobody sees you again until
they pull your rotting corpse out of the snow bank next Spring.
Oh yeah..forgot, that's between Munising and Marquette.
Heh heh. Reminds me of a trip I made some years ago, returning to
Hoton after Xmas break in the record snowfall winter of 78/79. For
some reason I was driving back on New Year's Day, and there wasn't
much traffic out. It was the usual snow flurries most of the trip,
but by about the time I hit the Seney stretch it was coming down
pretty hard and the roads were getting slick. Just outside of
Munising, I saw a car that had passed me a while back in the ditch, so
I stopped at the state police station to tell them about it. By that
time it had gotten dark, the snow was still coming down hard, and the
wind off the lake was blowing it around so much that you couldn't see
more than about 20 feet in front of you as you were driving. I think
I drove the entire distance to Marquette entirely by feel; it took
about 2 hours and I didn't pass another car the whole time. It was
well after midnight by the time I got into Hoton. The heater in my
car was broken too, and I was thoroughly frozen by that time....
-Sandra
John E. Greene
>peca...@maxwell22.ee.mtu.edu (Campbell) writes:
>
>Heh heh. Reminds me of a trip I made some years ago, returning to
>Hoton after Xmas break in the record snowfall winter of 78/79. For
I have a similar memory driving back to Lake Superior State that same year
after Christmas break. It was snowing so hard that you were basically
driving into a wall of white. The tracks from cars that were ahead of you
disappeared within a few minutes so there wasn't much to follow. I am still
amazed today that I could drive that long (and fast) by just trying to stay
on what looked like a rounded hump of snow in front of me. Just outside of
Sault Ste. Marie I noticed that it was getting harder and harder to see the
road until I was completely losing sight of it. Just about when I was reading
to slow down to a crawl before I drove off the road, these two red taillights
appeared around 20 feet in front of me. I was just getting closer and closer
to a car that was in front of me and the snow it was kicking up was completely
blocking my vision. Had I been driving any faster I would have ran right into
the back of that car.
The only other condition that I can think that is almost as difficult to drive
in as a blizzard is when you are out in the middle of nowhere and it is
snowing those huge, fluffy flakes. They look like they are all flying
directly at you and become quite hypnotic. You catch yourself watching the
flakes fly toward you rather than watching the road. Thank god for lowbeams
and fog lights! I think about all the times driving back from Munising on M94
at 3 in the morning just keeping the car between the trees because the road,
shoulders, and ditches all look the same. *sigh* Hard to believe I would
miss all that.
--
John E. Greene Everyone needs something to believe in. I believe
Sr. Staff Engineer I'll have another homebrew!
Desktalk Systems Inc.
(213) 323-5998 internet: j...@desktalk.desktalk.com
Preacher
>I would appreciate any other elaborate descriptions of the
>scenery possible.
well lets see i dont know what part of the midwest you hail from but
here on the southern shores of lake superior most of the leaves have
left the trees, [just the hanger-on's are left] the temps have been
having a hard time getting into the forties, and every day it threatens
snow.
just the type of weather that makes one stay indoors and be glad they
have a computer at home that can connect to the net.
--
In '92 vote for the man with more name recognition than Ronny Raygun, the
youth of JFK, more personality than G. Ford more teeth than brother Jimmy.
Never vote for the incumbent. In '92 as a write in candidate vote...
>>> Dan Quayle for President <<<
Rogene Eichler [mf12801]
spent most of my time hanging out on the beach either in South Haven
or Bridgman. My Grandfather used to take me there no matter what the
weather. I was always facinated by the look of Lake Michigan when it
freezes over in mid winter. Late August, just after the peak of the
summer, is the *ultimate* time to hang out there. Beautiful sunsets...
sigh....No offence to Minnesotans, but I would trade all "10,000 lakes"
to move my Lake Michigan within a 35 minute drive...
Rogene M Eichler
Neuroscience Program Rog...@neuro.med.umn.edu
U of Minnesota Eic...@s1.msi.umn.edu
ISHKATE
ly from Spring Lake.... Just east of Grand Haven.... right on the lake. Unfort
unately I was moved to Indiana (Darwin's waiting room!), and I'm now at Penn St
ate....
Admittedly, the campus out here is pretty in the fall, but I still miss fall/
winter in Michigan.....
*********************************************************************ISHKATE
Randy Crawford
>Anyone out there from southern Michigan??? I grew up in Portage, but
>sigh....No offence to Minnesotans, but I would trade all "10,000 lakes"
>to move my Lake Michigan within a 35 minute drive...
>
>
>Rogene M Eichler
>Neuroscience Program Rog...@neuro.med.umn.edu
>U of Minnesota Eic...@s1.msi.umn.edu
Southern Michigan... I've lived in Midland, Portage, East Lansing, Marcellus
(dont ask), and Kalamazoo, so I guess I'm from So. Mi. I usually get to
visit each year around Christmas time.
Tying two threads together, last year when travelling west along I94 from
Ann Arbor to Kalamazoo, my sister and I encountered only the second white-
out I've ever seen (in some 15 years of living in the LP). We spent the
entire span moving along at maybe 25 MPH straining to determine whether
the hump was in the center of the road or not. Reminds me of the reason
I bought a CB years ago, lest I slid into a ditch without a trace.
And I would happily trade whatever it is that is the hallmark of the
Washington DC area for either 10,000 lakes or just 5.
--
| Randy Crawford craw...@mitre.org
|
| N=1 -> P=NP 703 883-7940
Boyd, Kevin
>In article <1991Oct24...@vaxb.acs.unt.edu> ih...@vaxb.acs.unt.edu writes:
>>Greetings to other displaced midwesterner types.
>>Last week I read a very fitting tribute to the great-lakes area regarding the
>>weather this time of year. Since I will not be returning to the area until
>>Christmas break, I would appreciate any other elaborate descriptions of the
>>scenery possible.
>>
>>(Does someone sound a bit homesick?)
>>
>>Thanks y'all (that word really bugs me)
>
>When I was a kid, I couldn't *wait* to get out of the 'midwest'. Now, you
>couldn't drag me away with a team of wild horses. Don't get me wrong, I
>enjoy visiting other places, but the key word is *visiting*! I've been to
>Texas . . . you have my sincere sympathy! ;) (that's a *joke*! See the
>smiley? ;);););)!
>
sympathy. (Note no smileys). It would be nice to be in a place that has a
season other than 'hot, humid, chance of rain'.
Oh, well, less than two months from Christmas break, and my next trip home!!
Thanks for the article-- I really enjoyed it.
Kevin
Gretchen A Hitselberger
>In article <1991Oct25.1...@meaddata.com>, do...@meaddata.com (Doug Ritter) writes...
>>In article <1991Oct24...@vaxb.acs.unt.edu> ih...@vaxb.acs.unt.edu writes:
>>>Greetings to other displaced midwesterner types.
>>
>Oh, well, less than two months from Christmas break, and my next trip home!!
>
Okay. That does it! *Now* I'm REALLY homesick!!!! I MISS THE UP!!! I miss
the snow, the ice, the cold...the horizon!!!!
You take Manhattan...give me L'Anse any day of the week!
^^^
Gretchen
DoD#172
Mary Jacobs
says:
>
>In '92 vote for the man with more name recognition than Ronny Raygun, the
>youth of JFK, more personality than G. Ford more teeth than brother Jimmy.
>Never vote for the incumbent. In '92 as a write in candidate vote...
> >>> Dan Quayle for President <<<
You have been in the north woods too long I fear.... {:-)
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^>Mary Jacobs |Disclaimer: This is MY|"There is another alter- >^
^>U45301@UICVM |view--not the view of |native than to obtain the>^
^>Univ. of IL at Cgo.| the " U " |superfluities."--Thoreau >^
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jim drogos
strong willed person and it is impossible for me to finish painting the house
with the wife, the kids and the dog packed in the wagon, heading up M63 to
South Haven and Sawgatuck every weekend. :-)
--
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Jim Drogos | Disclaimer: Honest, I didn't know it was |
| fe...@midway.uchicago.edu | loaded! |
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tow...@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu
Have you ever heard of Stevensville? That's where I'm from. No? Well,
how about Benton Harbor or St. Joseph? They're only about five miles north of
my hometown.
When I was little, I always wanted to move somewhere else. Now, I can't
wait to go back home (I'm at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre
Haute, Indiana); I'll miss my lake-effect snow come winter!
Brad Town :)
Steven Vest
I too am stuck in one of those "wonderful" "it's warm all the time" hell-holes.
What I really miss is a cold November day, when there's ice crusting in
the rocks on the shore, putting my face into the wind and watching the
oar-boats move across the lake. The wind cuts right through you, but you
feel alive and grateful for coffee, stew and good friends. (Not to mention
fireplaces). Then, when the lake freezes and you walk out onto the ice and the wind makes the snow slither through the peaks in the frozen water, you feel
like you just may be the only person in the world for awhile and that all
of the beauty is just for you.
After that, day after day of "Sunny and 30% chance of rain." day after
day afterr day just doesn't cut it. I think people who can only deal with
sunny weather are basically shallow. There! I said it. Let the Flames begin!
--
========================== ve...@novavax.nova.edu =============================
= Steven Vest: Electronic Reference Librarian: Nova University, Ft. Ldl, FL =
= Anything you see by me is just MY opinion. Don't blame Nova. =
=================Life is strange. Yeah, but compared to what?=================
Mary Jacobs
(jim drogos) says:
>
>Please let's end this talk about the midwest in the fall and winter. I'm not a
>strong willed person and it is impossible for me to finish painting the house
That's ANOTHER thing about fall in the midwest. It is the ONLY time that is
fit for painting and it is always a conflict between having fall fun in the
forests and painting, because you KNOW that blast of icy air is only
a few weeks a way and will soon be coming IN YOUR WINDOW CRACKS that have
not been painted in five years.
WC78...@miamiu.bitnet
I miss the fall leaves and the big winter snow. Too much!
Wendy L. Conner
John E. Greene
One thing that I remember about this time of the year is the opening day of
deer season. Many, many people from the LP come up to the UP for deer season
and apparently do not want to go home with any ammunition left. At dawn on
opening day, it is like being on the front lines of a war. It is a not-stop
deludge of gun fire coming from all directions. The first time I experienced
this I swore I would never enter the woods at that time of the year again.
It is definitely not worth the risk of getting hit by a stray bullet. You can
occasionally hear a bullet embed itself in a tree near your blind. All you
hear is this 'whizzing' sound getting louder at a very high rate ending in a
'tha-whack!' as it hits a tree. Pretty scarey.
Sandra Loosemore
overrun by deer when I was there visiting my family about a month ago.
They've had a couple unusually mild winters in a row and most of the
does seem to have had twins this spring, so there's been a huge
population explosion. They were really tame, browsing in people's
yards and along the roads in broad daylight and not being at all
scared by people or cars or dogs. I've *never* seen quite so many of
them, and especially not so early in the fall. This was also the
first time I've ever seen full-grown bucks hanging around.
Unless vast numbers of these critters are killed off during hunting
season, there's really going to be mass starvation this winter. (They
were already dipping into the apple supply at the end of September, as
one bad sign -- usually, deer don't like to eat apples until there's
been a hard freeze and they turn rotten and mushy.) Lots of people
there put out deer chow in the winter but that's not going to help
much if it's a heavy snow year.
-Sandra
Dennis Parker
For all you folks who miss Midwestern winters, here's a weather report.
We've had 21 inches of snow here in Minneapolis since yesterday afternoon.
There is supposed to be another 6-8" more tonight along with 50 mph winds.
The temperature should be about 20 degrees tonight. About 1 in 10 people
made it to work today.
Let me emphasize that I'm not complaining. I think it's great. I grew up
in lower Michigan (Lansing) and went to college in the U.P (Michigan Tech) and
would hate to have to leave Minnesota. But the thought of 75 degrees and sunny
also had a certain appeal this morning as I was clearing the driveway.
- Dennis Parker
Dan Cody
>fit for painting and it is always a conflict between having fall fun in the
>forests and painting, because you KNOW that blast of icy air is only
>a few weeks a way and will soon be coming IN YOUR WINDOW CRACKS that have
>not been painted in five years.
>
>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^
>^>Mary Jacobs |Disclaimer: This is MY|"There is another alter- >^
>^>U45301@UICVM |view--not the view of |native than to obtain the>^
>^>Univ. of IL at Cgo.| the " U " |superfluities."--Thoreau >^
>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^>^
Try _caulking_ (instead of painting) those cracks to have more
time for fall fun :-)
--
Dan Cody (dc...@digi.lonestar.org)
voice: 214 519 3884
Randy Crawford
|> Dissenting point of view: Fall in New England is just as nice as fall
|> in Michigan; for example Wellesley, MA, 3 weekends ago, mountain biking
|> around some parks, the scenery was spectacular. The skiing is better
|> in New England, compared to things like Mt. Brighton, Alpine Valley,
|> and "giants" like the Boynes (but go west for Real Skiing). Ann Arbor
|> is still cool, but what the heck are all those strip malls doing out
|> there on Ann Arbor - Saline Road and Plymouth Road? And the pizza is
|> much better out here.
Hey! Thats enough of that! Take it to alt.NE.emigrees or something.
Steve Lasich
>What?!?! No snow for Halloween this year?
Not in the sheltered harbor of Marquette. But I hear they had the
white stuff up in da hills of Negaunee and Ishpeming. Right now it
is snow-covered and slippery up dare, but dare's barely a dusting
of the white stuff here on the shores of Gitchee Gumee (where I know
you'd rather be.)
Steve Lasich -- Vote for William R. Quayle in '92.
Jonathan Robie
Yeah, I grew up in Western New York out in the country. I personally
know of cows, dogs, and one person who have been hit by bullets from
stupid deer hunters. Urgh. We stayed out of the woods during deer
hunting season.
Jonathan
===========================================================================
Jonathan Robie jro...@netmbx.UUCP
Arnold-Zweig-Str. 44 jro...@netmbx.in-berlin.de
O-1100 Berlin
Deutschland Phone: +37 (2) 472 04 19 (Home, East Berlin)
+49 (30) 342 30 66 (Work, West Berlin)
--
Jonathan
===========================================================================
Campbell
>
>Yeah, I grew up in Western New York out in the country. I personally
>know of cows, dogs, and one person who have been hit by bullets from
>stupid deer hunters. Urgh. We stayed out of the woods during deer
>hunting season.
We were walking across the Mt. Ripley ridge in SEPTEMBER (the ridge along
the top of Hancock, the edge of the Keeweenaw) about 1/2 km into the woods
following the old rail line and suddenly we heard pellets whizzing all
around us. Didn't get hit but somebody was downright STUPID and to top it
off, we were making no effort towards being quiet...in fact, the guy with
me got to be annoying at times because he never really is quiet and I'm one
of the types that tends to walk either alone or silent through a woods.
David A Rasmussen
# In article <BBC...@netmbx.netmbx.de> jro...@netmbx.netmbx.de (Jonathan Robie) writes:
#>
#>Yeah, I grew up in Western New York out in the country. I personally
#>know of cows, dogs, and one person who have been hit by bullets from
#>stupid deer hunters. Urgh. We stayed out of the woods during deer
#>hunting season.
#
# We were walking across the Mt. Ripley ridge in SEPTEMBER (the ridge along
# the top of Hancock, the edge of the Keeweenaw) about 1/2 km into the woods
# following the old rail line and suddenly we heard pellets whizzing all
# around us. Didn't get hit but somebody was downright STUPID and to top it
# off, we were making no effort towards being quiet...in fact, the guy with
# me got to be annoying at times because he never really is quiet and I'm one
# of the types that tends to walk either alone or silent through a woods.
Yea, we always refered to these people as the "Sears and Roebuck" people.
They were the ones who shot the turtles off the logs in the sun in the
morning in the bays around the lake we had a cottage on. Bastards.
--
Dave Rasmussen - Systems Programmer/Manager, UW-Milwaukee Computing Svcs Div.
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