State of the Jen

[jenett]

This morning: Quite good really. I felt like I was getting my brain back in deep ways that haven't been true since.. oh, last July? There was good music. It was a lovely sunny day out (none of this 'largely cloudy' thing the forecast was suggesting.) I had had a very nice breakfast at the B&B.



I drove up the coast of Lake Superior for a bit, pausing at Gooseberry Falls to go and admire the Upper, Middle, and Lower Falls (very lovely, and also very full at the moment.) The park is also pleasingly ADA compliant, as much as any park that involves falls (and hence vast differences in elevation) can be: there's a paved path with seats at the bends for resting, as well as stairs, that can get you to most of the particularly interesting view points.

I had lunch, and then started feeling like I'd very much overreached my stamina, so came back south rather than the theoretical plan of going up to Split Rock Lighthouse (since the lighthouse isn't open yet for the season, I would just have been standing on the beach, mostly.)

But, since it was still early in the day, I went to the Great Lakes Aquarium, instead of doing it tomorrow, and it's *lovely*. I am fond of aquaria generally, but this one is all about fresh water - mostly Lake Superior, but also various other major fresh lakes. They also have a piece of art as you enter that made me want to own a house - it's a water wall made of frosted glass with symbols from all sorts of places/cultures/traditions (including a bunch of alchemic ones, etc.) for water. Very lovely. They also have the sort of signage that Minnesota has spoiled me for - not only saying what a display is, but why it's cool, and what's unusual about it.

Am now tired and sore, but less cranky than earlier, as I have had bath in bathtub I now lust over. It's a Thermomasseur tub, and it has a couple of advantages over regular massage tubs. A major one is that it works on forced air for the jets, rather than forced water. This means you can actually put bath stuff in the water (oils, foam, salts, whatever) because it won't get in the jets. If you are like me and have long hair, it also means you have less risk of your hair getting in the jets. (The one downside, if like me you have a cat, is that it self-cleans the air jets about 20 minutes after you get out, which sounds like a washing machine going on, more or less, only with more water and less air.) But overall? Ooooh.

Comments

[laughingrat]

It does sound nice. Michigan has some really beautiful places!

[jenett]

I am in Minnesota, but yes, same thing! (I will be in Michigan this summer, looks like, but probably not on the very-large-lake coast.)

[laughingrat]

Oh, d'oh. Hi, Rat, the Great Lakes do touch more than one state. *headdesk* I thought somehow that you'd traveled to Michigan (in retrospect, why would you do that just for a day trip? :-P).

If you're in Muskegon, there's the Vaudeville Actors' Colony, where Buster Keaton lived in the summers when he was a lad. :-D

[jenett]

We're going to be mostly in Lake Odessa, which is a long story. (It's about 30-45 minutes east of Grand Rapids). We used to have a tiny little summer cottage there, left over from when my parents ran a summer stock theatre further down the state *way* before I was born.

Mom's renting two much larger cabins on the same lake for two weeks (and I'm going for five days, due to other scheduling needs with vacation and the fact that I'll like my family a lot more if I leave before we start hitting each other's raw points) in July, and I'm rather looking forward to it. (Except for the part about being the only adult there without my own car, as I'm going to be doing the rest of my trip by train and one flight.)

But yeah. Very large lakes touch lots of places! (My cool fact for the day: there is enough water in Lake Superior to cover the entire landmass of both North *and* South America to the depth of one foot. Also, if you put people in ice fishing houses 12 feet apart across a frozen Lake Superior, you could fit 6 billion of them. )

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

They also have the sort of signage that Minnesota has spoiled me for - not only saying what a display is, but why it's cool, and what's unusual about it.

...doesn't everybody have this? Seriously, is it better than average here?

[jenett]

Seriously better than average, and I say this as someone with deep familiarity with Boston museums, and a reasonable passing one with New York City ones.

Both of those places are decent, but Minnesota museum signage has a real knack for going a level deeper than "Here is this cool thing."

I'd think it was a single museum, but it's really not: *every* museum I've been to here, even down to pretty small ones like the Bell at the U, or even the National Park Service thing at Gooseberry Falls today manage it.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

You know, I bet I'd be really good at writing signs like that. :-/

[jenett]

You would! (And I will be on the lookout for you, because having you local would be a wonderful thing.)

[txanne.livejournal.com]

I would be so happy to move up there.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you're having fun! Hooray for more stamina.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Sounds wonderful. I'm so glad you're having a good time!

[leanne-opaskar.livejournal.com]

Sounds lovely. l would love to visit that aquarium! It sounds amazing!

Glad to hear you're having a good time. I have finally made it to the post office, so the cookbook should arrive at your place sometime after you get back. I sent it parcel post so you wouldn't have to worry about it showing up while you're away.

[jenett]

It is a very well done aquarium.

And yes, good time, now that I am over the grumpy with my body for not doing what I'd like. But yay cookbook! I should be in a state to do something with it when it arrives.

(One of the annoyances I hadn't quite forseen of the lack of appetite problem is that it limits what one can do to reasonably make use of a stretch of time before doing something else. I have reason to hope this will improve eventually, per herbalist, but having new interesting things to cook will certainly not hurt.)

[eeyorerin]

Oh good, I am glad that your brain is coming back online.