PICS FROM UMBS
This weekend I went to the University of Michigan Biological Station outside of Pellston, MI (near Mackinaw City, Petoskey). I got in a few firsts there: climbing a sampling tower, going to the UP. And for the most part (aside from seeing Batman in Mackinaw City) I was completely unplugged. It was amazing. I need to do that more often.
More to the point, I put up some pictures. You can check them out here.
Cheers.
nice beard
You need to take the Nick Adams stories of Hemingway along to read on such an excursion. He cut his literary teeth in that area surrounding Petoskey and had a home on nearby Loon Lake. I think one of his first jobs was as a reporter for a local newspaper, though his young life is more commonly associated with Oak Park in Chicagoland. Chat with the ladies at the independent bookstore on main street in Petoskey. It is an awesome bookstore and one of the employees was the archivist who organized the Hemingway papers, at least the ones in Michigan.
And there are some ecology guides that can take visitors out to hunt Petoskey stones and a lady with a dilapidated ladpidary shop (doesn’t that trip lightly off the tongue)where you can get them polished as souvenirs or transformed into various ornaments. Is this legal? It’s not protected like ivory, I guess.
If you want another such weekend closer to home, check with the Purdue biologists/ornithologists as I think there are some nearby, somewhat isolated wilderness reserves that are flyways for the migratory sandhill cranes. I have never been, but apparently it is an unforgettable experience, and I think it may be going on about now.