hang on to your hat

one of the main reasons i went to minneapolis was to attend the jack hanson memorial retrospective at intermedia arts. it was incredibly moving to see all of jack's work in the gallery setting and there were so many people there to show their support and see some incredible art. it alone was worth the drive.









there was a lot of beaching and even some mud in my minneapolis time. the mud was so excellent and i took more videos of walking in it, which you can find on my flickr. i now boast an excellent base tan, and if the weather ever starts actually acting like summer i will be supremely brown in no time.

















denise and i spent a neverending saturday together which involved but was not limited to: missing 3 busses, downtown minneapolis, talking to a stripper with a prison telephone system, getting lost on a 1 mile island, bonfire, friends who jumped off the bridge into the mississippi, vanilla vodka, bike riding in the sunshine, laundromats, and falling asleep in our pancakes. wow. it was intense! we went to bed at 9:30am! its been a very long time since that has happened and will probably be a very long time until it happens again.

i left minneapolis on monday afternoon and took a long but beautiful drive through northern wisconsin on mostly local highways.





crossed the michigan border into the UPPER PENINSULA and also entered the eastern time zone. it was no matter though because it still stayed light until past 10pm. i wish i could still be up there (get it?)





stayed at the hiawatha motel in escanaba where i slept in another king size bed and woke up early to buy some hand knit slippers that were being sold in the office (they were $3 each! i should have got more!) took a leisurely walk on the tip of the escanaba point and then had a big breakfast at the swedish pantry in downtown escanaba. did a bit of shopping at the SVdP and shoved off for my long (and majestic - crying multiple times from beauty and joy majestic) drive to ann arbor. i stopped at a lighthouse, i stopped to get a pastie (pronounced pass-tee - look it up) and stopped to buy a boomerang near the mackinac bridge, and before i knew it my eta went from 7pm to almost 9pm! here are some choice shots from the best drive of my trip.
























spent the night with my friend robyn, his wife summer and their two dogs pepper and iggy in their huge house in saline, mi, just outside of ann arbor, or A2 as its known there. had a few beers with robyn and talked about domestic life and then slept like a rock in their lovely guest room. this morning robyn and i went thrifting at value world (i bought 15 pairs of shoes!) and then had a quick driving tour of A2, which reminded me a lot of eugene, oregon. i told robyn and he said he felt the same way. funny!









the drive today, snaking through the blue collar towns of toledo, cleveland, and erie, was shorter than the past two days, but felt longer and i even felt like i may have been falling asleep towards the end of it.



now i am back in amherst, ny at denise's house. it is comfy and familiar and we played apples to apples and then i watched hannah montana with andie while she listened to taylor swift on her tiny laptop. now i am falling asleep making this blog thing and attempting to stay up to see macca on letterman. tomorrow i cannot shop. i have spent all my money and then some. i want to sleep in. i want to have a cute breakfast here with denise and lisa and andie, and then have a quick zoom across new york state to my house and bed and i hope my plants are alive. oh i really hope my plants are aliveeee.

well i hope you are all satisfied. are you?


my. eyelids. are. droopy.

adios amigos! xoxo!