Mostly the Upper Peninsula

The first step was crossing the Mackinac Bridge. This huge bridge crosses over the boundary between Lakes Michigan and Huron. It also connects the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan. If you are from Michigan, you would probably refer to those regions as the UP to the Mitten. People really do point to regions of their right palm to indicate what part of the state to which they are referring.

Anyway, this bridge was huge, and I enjoyed looking at two Great Lakes at once.

After crossing the Mackinac Bridge, I hopped on a ferry to go to Mackinac Island.

The island is pretty much a really nice tourist trap. Seriously, it's a trap. You can only get there by a rather expensive ferry (and if you want your own bicycle, it's even more expensive!), which only run during the day. Once you're on the island, your only options of transportation are horses (which poop all over the place) drawing carriages or bicycles. This was exceptionally nice, I must admit. However, it promotes those who don't seem to know how to ride bicycles to ride them (see below).

There is a road that goes along the coast of the whole island. I rode by bike around it, frequently getting really agitated by the small children that didn't seem to know how to ride their rented bikes. I almost ran into one that stopped and got off of her bike when going up a hill right in front of me.

The highlight of the ride wasn't the cool lake breeze or the fragrant horse droppings, but rather the cleverly-placed snack stand with pickles. Apparently fried pickles are a highlight of this region of Michigan. Unfortunately, I didn't know that there was a difference between a pickle-on-a-stick and a fried pickle. I ordered the former, which was a massive pickle that couldn't be finished.

The next step was an excursion to Sault Sainte Marie, which is a town in both Michigan and Canada.

The Michigan town is known for the locks helping to connect Lakes Huron and Superior. Large boats use these locks, and it's just impressive.

The Canadian Sault Sainte Marie was not nearly as interesting. Although it was amusing to go to Canada, just because I could, the fact that I did that on the weekend preceding Canadian Thanksgiving really made the town seem barren and not worth the effort to cross over. In the picture of the locks, the big bridge in the background crosses to Canada. The land off in the distance is Canada.

Then there was Paradise, MI. I really don't know how to describe Paradise other than express that I don't understand why it exists. The only nearby attraction were the Tahquamenon Falls, which were by no means a thriving tourist attraction. Regardless, there is a really nice hotel there that is right on the edge of Lake Superior. There was also very little light pollution, which made trying to take pictures of the night sky actually fruitful (although they are mostly blurry, sadly this is not something that could be noticed on the small display on the camera). I had great hopes of viewing the Northern Lights from here, but they didn't show themselves. There had been a large solar flare the previous weekend, but that was just unfortunately timed.

Tahquamenon Falls were in a very well-kept state park. Michigan charges an admission fee per vehicle. This allows them to actually have clean bathrooms. I was shocked.

Anyway, the Falls were quite lovely with the changing leaves. I greatly enjoyed that the water was brown. This picture is from the upper falls. There were also far less majestic lower falls. The state park had a gift shop and a restaurant. Shockingly, the restaurant was quite good. I finally got my fried pickles. I was disappointed that it was the only opportunity I took to eat the fried pickles. They were glorious,.

Chicago, again

I am now about a four hour drive from Chicago, which means that I can much more easily get there. That's good.

I went there for a weekend. I had an amazing view of the city (thanks to last minute hotel booking) and went to the planetarium. It is a fantastic city that I'd like to explore more.

They also have really good pizza.

The rest of the summer in California

I was horrible about updating over the summer.

The NASA Exchange Lodge promised some things that made me chose that as housing: low price, access to the base pool, free laundry facilities, and free wireless internet. Only the low price existed. OK, so the internet worked after 1 a.m. and when all of the interns were at work. I didn't think it would be appropriate to update the blog while at work, so I just kept putting it off. Then I went back home and promptly packed almost all of my belongings to move to Michigan. The next thing I know, here I am with unpacked boxes in my apartment still and I'm already into the semester.

So a little bit of a summary of my summer seems necessary.

In my one and only post, I commented that Mountain View was a far walk. After I did it about a million times, I no longer thought it was a long walk. The only part of it that was long was the stretch with no shade. That was miserable. The weather was gorgeous almost every day, but when in the direct sunlight it was hot. I got a lot of sunburn. As a direct result, I got a lot of freckles (many of which are now fading to my excessive dismay).

What did I do for the summer? I spent a lot of time working. I worked exceptionally long days and frequently left work to have dinner and work remotely from my room. I found it incredibly rewarding. I am still working remotely on the project. I will be presenting the results at a meeting in Austin, TX in January (unless I get the paper out, then I will be presenting something else).

I also went to San Francisco several times. I rode cable cars, went to Fisherman's Wharf, took a ferry to Alcatraz, and saw the Golden Gate Bridge. I quite enjoyed San Francisco. I saw some small redwood trees. I also went to Half Moon Bay for the beach, where I realized that northern California has cold ocean water because the water comes from Alaska...not the south. That was silly.

I ate a lot of food. I spent some weekends exploring Mountain View. I spent a lot of time with the people I worked with.

That's the general overview of the summer. I will be returning next summer. The highlight was the day that my advisor first indicated I am to be welcomed back next year. It's a requirement of my fellowship that I do work for NASA, but knowing that they are anticipating my return is very rewarding.