Category: Travel

On the road again

A few random thoughts from Bowling Green, KY, where Will and I are staying at the halfway point on our return from Orange Beach, AL, to Ypsi:

  • Will and I actually started with a detour to the beach because, as we were leaving, I was struck by the fact that we had spent so little time near the Gulf. So we went to a park that was way out of our way and went down the long beach and touched the water, which was warmer than I thought it would be.
  • There’s a disturbing number of newish sushi and/or Japanese steak places in rural Alabama. And when I think of rural Alabama, I think….
  • When driving in the midwest/northeast, I scan the lower end of the FM dial in search of a public radio station. In Alabama, this section of the radio spectrum is dominated by Christian radio. I dunno, that’s a weird contrast to me.
  • Alabama is one long-assed state, like 400 miles from bottom to top. That’s a lot of, um, sweet home.
  • I only ate BBQ once on this trip, and it was just okay.
  • The Jack Daniels distillery was a very tempting stop, but it was 25-30 miles off the Interstate, and that’s a lot of miles/time to spend on a beverage I don’t regularly drink. Now if it was a scotch….
  • Bowling Green, KY, is kind of similar in some interesting ways to Bowling Green, OH. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, it has a blue collar tang to it (they make corvettes here) has a university, and it does not appear to have a decent restaurant (and thus room service pizza, which isn’t bad). Will and I drove around and did see a lot of pretty old houses.
  • The pool and hot tub at this hotel has a saline solution instead of chlorine for some reason. I got into the hot tub, so I started and end the day in salt water.

Anyway, tomorrow drive-drive-drive and then home.

Alabama Roadtrip, part 2 (Mission Accomplished)

I see you, too!

We started out Saturday morning with benigets, a little driving around, and then out to the Fort Morgan State Park, which is out at the end of one of the barrier islands under Mobile. This was Will’s idea. While driving around and looking at beaches and stuff, the grandparents were chatting about things we could do. They mentioned Fort Morgan, Prince William said “this is a good idea,” and off we were go, 30 or so minutes later.

Actually, it was a good idea. It’s a very old Fort, dating back from the war of 1812, and involved in some Civil War stuff. It had been “updated” over the years as a defensive post during WWI and WWII (I think) with some concrete bunkers and batteries for big cannons and stuff. It looked like the kind of place that would be a cool set to make a student movie. Some great views, but I was surprised to see dozens of off-shore oil rigs out there. If you look carefully over Will’s left shoulder, you can see one.

Went to lunch, and then we went on a dolphin cruise on this boat. I was a little dubious of the whole thing, especially since I do not enjoy boating in any shape and/or form. But it was a very pleasant day and a pleasant ride. We saw a surprising number of dolphins, and a bunch of them even ended up chasing after the boat and jumping out of the water.

Here’s some video; it doesn’t really do the experience justice though:

That night, we went to an extremely popular faux redneck place called Lulu’s where the entertainment included a band made up of guitar, harmonica, bongo-like drumkit, and tuba. One of their songs was “I Hope There’s a Trailerpark in Heaven,” or something like that, which fit well with a song I heard earlier in the day that had the line “It’s snowbird season, why we can’t shoot ’em?” (BTW, here’s a link to a bizarre video where this song is set to a clip from the cartoon series Teen Titans). It kind of sums up the whole area down here, really. It’s a land where Jeff “you might be a redneck if…” Foxworthy is surly worshiped like a God.

The big highlight of today was a trip to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola. We took a tour of the main floor of the museum, and Will was just enamored with the retired pilot tour guide, hanging on every single little word. A lot of our fellow tour patrons felt the same way, basically because many were either ex-military folks or just airplane/Navy geeks. One guy was mumbling to himself about the connections between the various planes and Star Wars and Star Trek. Another guy kept nodding in agreement with everything the tour guide said. Or maybe it was a nervous tick, I don’t know.

There was also a bus tour through a parking lot full of planes they couldn’t get into the building. The tour guide was just horrible, but despite that, this was one of the highlights of the trip for me. For this part of the tour featured this plane:

W's Mission Accomplished

Don’t recognize it? Well, you remember when Bush landed that plane on the carrier and declared “mission accomplished” with the Iraq war, right? Of course you do, but here’s some footage from Fahrenheit 911 as a refresher. Well, guess what happened to the plane?

W's Mission Accomplished Plane close-up

Yep, there it is. I dunno, but it seems a pretty preposterous place for the plane used in one of the most dubious stunts in recent American history, if you ask me. “Mission Accomplished” sent to the back lot of a museum.

Anyway, here’s a link to a flickr set of the trip so far. There will probably be some more, but I need to get caught up with some school work over the next day or so first. Well, that, and play some golf.

Alabama Roadtrip, part 1

As I type this, I just got done looking through some materials for my online class while at the condo my parents have rented in Orange Beach, Alabama– aka, the Redneck Riviera, or, if you believe that it is only the panhandle of Florida, near it. A few thoughts/highlights so far:

  • We didn’t get as far as we would have preferred on Thursday because a) it was Valentine’s and Will was not about to leave school and miss out on the candy, b) Survivor was on at 8 pm (must-see watching for Will), c) Lost was on at 9 pm (must-see watching for me– and I thought it was excellent), and d) traffic in Ohio really sucked.
  • I was rather surprised at the number of accidents and other emergency vehicle personnel I saw on the road. Of course, considering that I drove just shy of 1,000 miles in two days, maybe it isn’t surprising.
  • Possible stop on the way home: Jack Daniels. Just for the tour, people.
  • The only real photo op so far was at a rest stop near Huntsville, Alabama, where they made these rockets:

    Rocket

    I also like Will next to this proclamation:

    We dare

    Apparently, it’s the state motto. But shouldn’t that be “We dare to defend our rights?” Am I missing something here?

  • Biggest food screw-up of the trip: passing on the local BBQ place in Birmingham in favor of what I thought would be easier and faster to eat while driving food at Burger King.
  • You know, I see plenty of older cars like mine with lots and lots of bumper stickers on the streets of Ypsi-Arbor. You don’t see as many on the Interstate. And you don’t see any other Darwin stickers down here, either.

Anyway, a combo of some fun and some work for the next few days. I’m sure there will be more updates.

Sabbatical Lite– it ain’t over yet

Loyal readers of my official blog will recall that I was on what I referred to as “Sabbatical Lite” last term, an arrangement in which I was taking one semester sabbatical and splitting it up over two semesters. It had its ups and downs in the winter term, it was beginning to feel like it was slipping away from me this term, and my conclusion was that doing this was basically a bad idea.

But I’m starting to rethink this, at least a bit. It probably wasn’t a good idea, but it might not have been a bad idea, either.

For example, I am starting to get into a routine this term where I am able to devote much more time to research stuff for four or five days of the week (including weekends, of course). Not that I’ve been incredibly productive as of late, but I’m still probably doing more on the BAWS project than I would have been able to do under normal teaching load circumstances.

Example #2: roadtrip.

Since I am teaching but one class online and since the administrative stuff has kind of settled down for the time-being, Will and I are embarking an epic journey to see my parents, who stay this time of year on the gulf coast of Alabama. The way I figure it, I will have pretty robust Internet access the whole time, meaning I can still teach and do most of my administrative duties. And as far as the canceled office hours go: well, that’s part of the release I get for being on sabbatical lite.

Annette, since she is not enjoying the pleasures of sabbatical lite, is staying home. She’ll have to work obviously, but I’m sure she’ll get her own “vacation” of sorts from Will and I.

Expect some photos and videos from the road, btw.

X-Mas in Iowa post (I couldn’t resist)

MY millions of loyal readers will recall that I said I wasn’t going to post until after the Christmas season, kind of in an effort to get away from teh Internets for a while. You can tell how well that’s worked out. Jeesh. Actually, the only reason I’m posting now is to procrastinate a bit and to post this video I made with my cell phone:

Annette and I were in a drug store and they had a row of all of these reindeer things that rocked in rocking chairs while singing “Grandma Got Ran Over By a Reindeer.” Naturally, I had to push the button to make all of them work. You can imagine how proud Annette was. As you can see, I recorded it with my lame cell phone video camera; rotate your monitor 90 degrees clockwise of optimal viewing.

Other Iowa travel news:

  • No travel problems to speak of on the way here, but we are nervously watching the weather channel for our return on Monday.
  • While Annette has attempted to be an earnest and good person (she is at the gym as I type), I apparently have seen this as an opportunity to fatten up on cookies, sugar, BBQ, and eggs, not necessarily all at the same time.
  • The grand kiddies seem to enjoy running about the house and screaming. Joy.
  • You have certainly heard of this whole Iowa caucus thing. It puts a whole different vibe on stuff here compared to Michigan. Literally, every other ad on TV out here is a political spot. My father told me that something like 25% of Iowans have met at least one of the candidates ; I know my mother has seen both Hillary and Obama. It’s all a little bizarre to me.

Anyway, back to reading and chasing after kiddies. Enjoy the reindeer over and over again.

Something to hold you over until next year

We’re getting ready to do the family holiday thing around here (first to Iowa, then to Florida– an unusual “duel parental visit” Christmas season trip), and I’ve decided more or less on the spur of the moment to not take my computer. I’ll probably borrow Annette’s to check my email a couple of times in the next two weeks, but that’ll be about it. I dunno, I kind of feel like it might do me some good to have some computer “away time,” and I have a bunch of reading (both school and for fun) that I want to do, and I’m afraid that if I take my computer, then what I’ll do is pick at that instead.

But not to leave my millions of regular readers in the lurch, I thought I’d share with you a bery strange movie trailer I came across, Fiend of Dope Island:

It is completely apropos of nothing in my life, but man, this movie appears to have it all: drugs, sex, tropical climes, and Yugoslavian bombshells. Here’s what IMDB had to say. If anyone sees it over the holiday, let me know. See y’all next year.

Thanksgiving roadtrop thoughts, the South Carolina edition

Life is hard for Will, ain't it?

We’re in Columbia, SC to see family on the Wannamaker side of things. A few thoughts this morning:

  • As you can see from the photo above, this hotel is a bit nicer than the place we stayed on the way down in Virginia. There’s an absolutely killer HD TV in this room too, and it’s all been recently redone. Very nice.
  • Oh, and btw, I left the plug for my computer at that hotel. Fortunately, I discovered that the plug for Annette’s computer works fine on this one and the people at this Virginia hotel are going to mail the other plug home. Hopefully.
  • We’re staying in the ‘burbs, which might as well be anywhere, though it’s quite a bit warmer here than it is in Michigan right now.
  • Will and I went scrounging for something for lunch on Thursday and ended up at a nearby Piggly Wiggly. I almost bought a t-shirt with the pig on it, along with a University of South Carolina hat. Their mascot, which is the gamecocks, was abbreviated on this hat as “COCKS” and in big capital letters like that. I had some misgivings about wearing a hat that said “COCKS” in big letters though.
  • Will and Annette and her mom went and did some touristy stuff on Friday while I stayed back at the hotel to get some work done– mission semi-accomplished. I asked at the front desk for advice on someplace to go around here for barbecue and the kids there suggested a place called Sticky Fingers. I found out about this too late, but this is a bit like recommending Applebee’s as a good place to get a great local burger. Obviously, the people at the front desk do not care much for BBQ.
  • Some more family things today and then tomorrow it is the long long drive home, which we’re going to do in one day. It’ll be dark when we start, and it’ll be dark when we finished.

A few misc. reflections from the Thanksgiving roadtrip

We’re on the road to South Carolina to see Annette’s relatives for the holidays. A few random thoughts before I go to bed:

  • I do not enjoy driving in the rain. At all.
  • I do not like driving in mountains. Annette finds mountains comforting and cozy. I find them claustrophobic and stress-inducing. At least it wasn’t raining.
  • Wytheville, VA (where we are staying this evening) looks like it might be a good place to buy crystal meth.
  • At the convenient store across the way, they sold no good beer. However (and I guess I find this kind of bizarre) they did sell both Bud Light & Clamato and regular Budweiser with Clamato. No, I don’t know what it tastes like and I don’t want to know.
  • Pizza Hut tastes pretty much the same everywhere, thankfully.
  • The show “Deal or No Deal” is absolutely stupid (essentially a coin flip bet, right?), and yet I absolutely cannot stop watching this show.

No postings = no news; but why not read about vinegar?

I just kind of realized today that I haven’t posted to my unofficial blog for quite a while. There’s been no particular reason for this lack of postings here, and I actually have been posting frequently enough on my official blog and on EMUTalk.org. I guess there just hasn’t been a lot of unofficial news. Let’s see….

  • We had a much smaller version of our annual fall Indian food fest.
  • Annette had her birthday last weekend, which included a much needed new computer and a lovely dinner and night out with a sitter and everything.
  • And I’m going to be getting geared up for some midterm travel. I’m going to New York City on Thursday for a conference (more on that on the official blog I am sure, and then we’re all going down to South Carolina next week for a Wannamaker Thanksgiving.

So like I said, no postings is no news, which is fine with me. But if you are really looking for something else to read, why not follow this link I found via boing boing about all the cool things you can do with vinegar?