It doesn't does, but it could! Wisconsin and Michigan, Day 4

Today was pretty uneventful, as trip days go. We woke up, I took a shower, got annoyed at Derek for not packing fast enough and dawdling a bit, we left exactly on time. You know. Standard. Usual. Expected. 

We drove back to Madison and asked Derek's mom what she'd like for dinner. The choice ended up being Halal Cart Chicken with White Sauce, one of our favorites. Well. Not the chicken for me, obviously. Since the townhouse in Madison is Beth's second home, she didn't have a full kitchen, so Derek and I went back out to the grocery store to grab everything for halal cart. We tooled around what was an impressively large store...like a Costco, but not bulk items...and got fairly lost trying to navigate our way to exactly the things we needed. My biggest takeaway from Woodman's?

Corn milk. Which...if I'm being honest, is more than likely fucking delicious. I was intensely curious about it, but since I'm keto for what feels like forever, I could not have it. Derek is currently keto, as well, so he couldn't even be my guinea pig about it. Alas, we will depart ways, corn milk, with neither of us knowing what the other is like on the inside. 

We made Derek's mom dinner, I was pleased that she was so impressed, and then we went to bed. Derek and I had to be up early for our most anticipated day: the last two thirds of our rock adventure. 

It doesn't does, but it could! Wisconsin and Michigan, Day 3

Hilariously, I insisted on returning our discard rocks to the beach. We have such a glut of unwanted Great Lakes rocks at our house now because I was not selective, and I didn't want to repeat that miscalculation. So our discards went into a bucket in the back of the car to be dumped onto Agate Beach, our primary stop of the day. The weather was absolutely stunning when we went to bed, so I opened the windows and we used nature's air conditioning. Imagine my dismay when Derek informed me that I failed to notice one of the windows did not have a screen. Immediately, I am imagining myself the victim of some rabid bat, clamping down on me in the night, and I text my SIL about whether or not I'm in danger of rabies. 

I am less than likely to be a victim of a rabid bat swooping into our cabin and giving me a rabies infested nibble, she reports, but I am not so sure. I AM DELICIOUS, OK? I know what I look like to a bat. A straight up feast. 

Agate Beach was an hour and a half away, and it was such a lovely day to be tooling around the UP. 

 

This is the little stretch of road that is right outside of the cabin we were staying at. Secluded and quite pretty. I remarked that I would have loved to see more native wildflowers, but I am also not familiar with the native landscape of the UP, so perhaps it's just...brushy prairie land with forest? I am not at liberty to say. 

We passed by Sunday Lake on the way out of the township. It's a cute little lake.

Rocks? Definitely. Our kinds of desired rocks? Perhaps. Stopped at to check? Not at all. 

We headed right to Agate Beach. Not on time, though I'm sure that wasn't shocking to hear. 

Cute!

We had read that this was a pretty primo spot for agate hunters, thus the name. But we were less than convinced. First of all, the offerings were...uh. Well, I know it's impolite to compare, but this beach has nothing on Little Girl's Point. 

Hi. I'm at Agate Beach. 

The scenery was very pretty, I am not disparaging Mother Nature's artistry on the lake beachfront aspect. Very pretty. No notes. But the rocks weren't really rising to the occasion. 

We posted up at this river outlet to look for rocks, and I was delighted by this bird exchange:

We had also seen a bald eagle the previous day, but this was a far more excellent encounter. 

Derek and I had been rockhounding for two hours when I said to him, "I can't help but feel like I'd rather be at Little Girl's Point." To which he replied, "You know what? Same." So we packed it in and headed back to Little Girl's Point. And upon arrival, found that the lake front here was placid enough to use our waders!

I say we, but I really mean Derek. I was wearing the shortiest shorts and decided to just get into the water to damn near vagina level and look around on my own. I didn't need to be chest deep. Derek was thrilled to be using his waders, though, so I left him to his wading and headed off in the other direction. 

This was as far as I had gone the day before, and I decided to go much further down this time. What you can't see is a little jut of island impersonator waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay way down at a much further point of beach. Covered in seagulls. That's where I headed off to. Seagull Island. 

Which was way further than I anticipated. It isn't like I mined the distance, it was my stupid water shoes. They were easily a half size to a full size too big for me, and they were fucking STUFFED with sand and pebbles, and walking with that was annoying as fuck. 

But I made it! I made it to Seagull Island. Finding rocks along the way, obviously. 

I was upset to find that my presence was NOT well received by all members of Seagull Island, one of them flew off in disgust at my arrival. Well. That's fine, I suppose. 

I looked around for more rocks, and then headed back to catch up with Derek. About halfway to Derek, I noticed how pretty the sunset was, so I turned back toward Seagull Island for one last glance. 

The beautiful sunset had not yet caught up to the seagulls. But it was fully enveloping Derek. 

My dad maintains that this is his favorite photo from the trip that I sent him. Up to that point, perhaps. I didn't ask him to really weigh in on everything else. 

It certainly was a glorious sunset, though. And I'll never see this sunset again. Derek and I had chatted about whether or not he wanted to look for yooperlites again. He initially said yes, so on the way tfrom Agate Beach to Little Girl's Point, I told Derek to just drop me off at the cabin so he could spend as many hours on the beach as he wanted without having to worry about me. He decided to not do that, that he had gotten his fill of yoopers the night before. I doubted that very much, but I was thrilled to have him go back to the cabin with me so we could check out our treasures.

My treasures!!! This is a 3 gallon bucket, and I filled it about halfway. Discerning as always!

The night before, Derek and I lamented the lack of light in the living room, and agreed to set up in the kitchen for our next treasure pick over. So we did!

With two beaches worth of rocks to look through, we tucked in and came up with a system of keep for us, keep to tumble, and send back to the beach. 

We ended up with a very nicce tumble bag, Derek ended up with a very modest amount of rocks, and I ended up with a very immodest amount of rocks. 

We ate our dinner, and went to bed, as we'd need to be out of the cabin by 10am and on our way back to Madison. But a very successful wrap up to the first leg of our rock trip!

It doesn't does, but it could! Wisconsin and Michigan, Day 2

We had intended to leave relatively early to get to Black River Harbor. We did not leave when I wanted, we left later, and like...I do not know why after being with my husband for twelve years and taking I don't know how many fucking trips together, I haven't been able to manage my expectations of leaving on schedule. My irritation and upset at setting a bar for us and never ever EVER meeting it...that's kind of on me. I can leave on time when it's just me, but Derek just can't seem to get it together. I have a hard time not wanting to keep to a schedule, I can be EXCEPTIONALLY type A, and it's hard to let go of that. 

Am I working on that? No. 

So we left when we left. We had a five hour drive up to Black River Harbor in the lower Upper Peninsula, and while it was a lovely drive when we came up in the winter, it was an even lovelier drive in the summer. I can really only speak for myself, but I truly love long drives with my husband. We just chat and have a great time together without having to worry about anything other than arriving safely. Since we left so much later than intended, I messaged our cabin host and asked if we could enter the cabin sooner than the time stated in our contract, and she graciously said of course, come on in! 

Our cabin was really adorable, though the amount of pine was...a choice. 

 

Such a cute little cabin. We were in the middle of nowhere outside of the township of Ironwood. Really the very bottom of the Upper Peninsula. 

Who's that stone cold fox? Oh right. It's my spousal unit! The pine I guess added to the outside facade of a cabin, but really, the place was cute and well stocked, and quiet, and exactly what we needed for our tiny little getaway. 

There was a little notebook for guests to write about their stay in, and I was flipping through and reading everyone's cabin yearbook signing, and I yelped at this and giggled all over the place. 

Reporting from the future, we saw no such strange lights. Though we DID have fun. 

After dropping off all of our things, we headed out to Black River Harbor National Park. I had been really excited to stop there and look around, there are so many waterfalls in the park and I wanted to do a few of the really short waterfall jaunts. Mostly because the creeks are ALSO good places to rockhound, but also because waterfalls, right? My step mom loves waterfalls (who doesn't!) and I was going to send her a few pictures of them. 

Unfortunately, ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL of the waterfall trails were closed. They were being redone to make them more accessible. A great thing, obviously, But in my personal brain that centers just myself, I was peeved to not be able to see the waterfalls. But just on my selfish little insides. Largely, yes. Make these trails accessible! We all deserve access to nature. 

The drive through the park was, of course, gorgeous. 

Even on an overcast day, the drive is stunning. I took a zillion photos during the drive, but one will suffice. 

We stopped at a little beach, but were a little disappointed by it, since we weren't there for non-waterfall trails, we were there to investigate rocks. And the one place we stopped was not conducive to our aims. 

It was more like a boat ramp, and that's on us. We took this route for the access to waterfalls and didn't get to stop at any, and we opted to not stop at this place, either. We decided to go back to our old favorite, Little Girl's Point. Which is, as the crow flies, maybe 10 miles down the coast. But the drive itself isn't direct, it was an hour and a half. 

With intention, taken at the same place...thereabouts...I took the first picture at our first visit to Little Girl's Point last year for our whirlwind anniversary trip. The weather was beautiful, but we were a little disappointed to see how choppy the water was. Derek and I bought some really great chest waders at an INSANELY LOW closeout price specifically to get deeper into the water and increase our chances at finding agates and rocks that weren't picked over already. Well. Those waves didn't quite make an easy waders area, so. Bummer. We stayed on the shoreline. But uh...it isn't like the shoreline isn't a smorgasbord of truly amazing rocks. 

There's Derek, investigating and searching and being discerning, most importantly. Our first trip, I grabbed EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ROCK that struck my fancy. I promised myself after going through all of my rocks and getting rid of more than half of them very recently that I would only pick the rocks that I knew were special. Derek was being so good about only taking the best of the best rocks. 

Oh no, everyone. Drea did NOT do that. Well...that's not exactly true. Drea WAS discerning. These are all of the rocks I was like, "but daddy I love him!" about. I grabbed a ton of really spectacular rocks, and I don't think a single thing of granite is among them. 

We were there for a few hours, and I was starting to get hungry. I told Derek I still needed to head off to Walmart, and Derek was upset because he was REALLY excited to hunt for yooperlites. I told him we had enough time to get me to Walmart and back to the cabin to be dropped off because...uh...I honestly do not care about yooperlites. I love that Derek loves them, but I just do not care. So we got back in the car, raced over to Walmart to get me my dinner stuff and get back to the cabin so Derek could race back to the beach. 

Sunset was incredible, and of COURSE this is a picture from a Walmart parking lot. 

We get back to the cabin, I bring all of my shit inside, and Derek heads out. I had a grand ol' time showering and cooking my dinner, hanging out and singing and carrying on. At about 10:45 I started to panic about what if Derek hit something on the way back to the cabin and wasn't able to call me to let me know? I realized that any number of accidents could happen and not only could Derek not let me know because the signal in the middle of nowhere is less than stellar, but I couldn't go out searching for him. He had the car. But obviously, he made it back pretty shortly after I started getting a little panicked about him doing not that. 

And he came back heavy with yoopers!

He unloaded all of his light up treasures and told me all about how packed the beach was with other people looking for yooperlites, and how he was very worried he wasn't going to find any. But that was very much not the case. Each rock came with a story about how he came across it, and he saved the best rock for last, which I hope I paraphrase correctly. 

According to Derek, time was pretty fast coming to the park closing time, so he made his way back to the parking lot area, and when 10PM rolled around, he noticed the beach wasn't exactly clearing out, so he decided to stay and look for yoopers for just a few minutes longer. He wound up checking out the surf line with his UV flashlight, and lo! An angel did appear. 

I can't stress enough that I really do not care one snit about yooperlites, these are 100% a Derek thing. I was pleased enough to accidentally grab one on our last visit, I didn't need or want to find another. But I was very pleased for Derek that he found so many, and I happily gagged over his finds. As yoopers go, they are fairly delightful, especially his last one. 

Now. 

One thing I do want to mention that Derek and I spent a lot of time on debating before this trip was how we wanted to go about the thing. And by that I mean how we wanted to document everything we did. I've been doing my travel blog recap things for years. Not as long as Derek and I have been traveling together, sadly...I don't even know when my first travel recap was, but several of our first trips are otherwise undocumented. Our Texas-Mesa Verde trip? Undocumented. Our impromptu Hanging Lake trip? Nowhere to be found. Dead Horse Mill and Crystal? Lost to the sands of time. Most unfortunate, our very first family trip where we took Vivi to Utah because it was her dream destination? No record. I'm the most gutted for that one. Well. It's why I do my best to keep diligent records now. 

I understand one day, Derek and I will be dead, and our kids will have limited knowledge of who we actually are as people, how we interact, our interests, things like that. So I have been talking about us maybe doing videos of ourselves talking to the kids, telling stories about ourselves, not just together, but our lives before we met. Before we were parents. Stuff like that. Derek and I have ALSO talked about maybe putting up a youtube channel for our rockhounding and cab making. Could be fun, we mentioned to each other. I found a cute little set of recording mics for us, and we planed to document the WI/MI trip like it was going to be for our kids and possibly a youtube rock channel.

Our very first night of rockhounding stuff. We had gotten to Black River HArbor, and I was like...um...meh, I guess, I'll start recording another place. We got to Little Girl's Point and I thought...well it's very windy, I'll start tonight when we look at each other's rocks. 

And then we started looking at our rocks, I took two videos, and I put my phone down. I do NOT want to be on youtube, I do not want to do videos, I am happy with my little travel blogs. Derek insists I have the engaging personality of someone who belongs on youtube, but it isn't just that I disagree, I also think I have no fucking interest in doing it. The performance is not something I am keen to partake, and I know that without a fucking doubt now. So that's a big pass on youtube from me. I will likely still make videos for my kids, but I have no interest in videos for anybody else not my kids. And you can kind of tell in my yooperlite video. I sound sarcastic, even though I was excited for Derek and his finds. But I was so drained at the idea of trying to perform that I just sound tired and disingenuous.  

We looked at each other's rocks, helped each other discard of rocks we were on the fence about, and put our discard pile in a bucket to bring back to the next beach we were heading to the next morning. Derek fastidiously labeled all of his rocks (where he found them, the date, the types of rocks) and I just threw all of mine into a bucket. As one does. And then we headed up the very pine stairs to the very pine primary sleeping area, and went to very piney sleep. 

It doesn't does, but it could! Wisconsin and Michigan, Day 1

Given that we are moving before the end of the year, Derek and I wanted to get back to the Upper Peninsula to rockhound on Lake Superior. Our first trip was a bit too fast for us, not enough time spent on the lake. So we threw together a trip, saved up, and were able to manage a much greater trip than we would have been able to afford because Derek's mom generously allowed us to stay at her townhouse in Madison, Wisconsin. 

I didn't really document this trip the way I normally document trips, because like...it was a rock trip? It wasn't a sightseeing trip like we were taking every yar, and will continue in a couple of years once we get settled in our new place. The last couple of years have been a weird back and forth so we haven't felt "safe" planning our usual yearly trips, but this little jaunt was a different story. 

So. 

The lowdown on what we were doing? Heading up to the UP to rockhound on Lake Superior, staying for a few days; heading back down to Wisconsin and spending the day with Derek's mom. Then heading over to Milwaukee to go to The Gem Shop's Box and Bucket sale, from there heading to The Gem Shop itself, then heading to Lake Michigan to rockhound and spending the night. THEN we'd head back to Madison and spend the remainder of our time with family. 

I didn't really take as many pictures as I normally would, so there really won't be too terribly many long, intense rewrites about what we did. 

Day one, we just drove. We got into the car several hours later than I personally intended, and our drive was very uneventful. Save two events:

Seeing my favorite vanity license plate ever:

Yes. Corn Chip. Absolutely. 

And getting impaled by a mystery piece of steel and bleeding all fucking over myself and the car and needing to get a tetanus shot. 

Now this I did not get a picture of, but I DID finally find out what I got impaled by, and I took a picture of that. 

Sure. Now that we're all aware that I was impaled by the little squiggle on my carbonated water machine (you can see my blood on it!), my use of the word "impaled" is hyperbolic and perhaps a bit silly. I hear you. 

But I also don't care. I was IMPALED. 

I have health anxiety, and I wasn't going to rest easily until I got a tetanus shot. I got one the next morning, on our way out. 

But that's for the next day. 

We arrived at Derek's mom's, she had gotten us Ha Long Bay for dinner, and we had dinner together and just chatted until we went to sleep a few hours later. 

Even with my DRASTIC IMPALING, it was a really uneventful drive and day. 

What's scented meat?

So I suppose that a 1:1 of PhD program acceptance and rejection doesn't really suck. It could have been 0:2 acceptance and rejection...though it also could have been 2:0. Really, given the program I applied to in Syracuse, I was never gonna get an acceptance. I knew it before I even applied. 

And the joke of it all is, I'm perfectly satisfied being able to say I was PhD material. I am happy to not pursue my PhD because now, I know I could. I wasn't sure that technique would work for me, but it did. I'm happy to be validated. The punchline isn't that, though, it's that I am currently applying to an MSW program in Binghamton. I think it suits me better, though I am still going to apply to the Women and Gender Studies program in Toronto when the cycle opens, because I think that's where my focus has always been meant to be. This MSW feels pretty close, though. 

I do not think my personal statement makes it appear that I actually want any part in academia, though. And part of me doesn't. I was very honest in my personal statement....the second time around. I initially faffed about with something flowery and self-aggrandizing and it made me sick to my stomach. I wrote four pages over the course of a week and kept just...staring at it. Today I opened it up and kept trying to write it and I was saying out loud, "this is bullshit. It's all bullshit." Even though the things I was saying were true, it was still just fucking fake. So I opened up another doc and started a second version. I banged out seven pages in a few hours, and overall, I feel much happier with what I said, though I think this version may cost me a spot where the other version would have made me a sure thing. That's ok. I am in a spot where being true to myself matters more than proving myself to strangers. I have done the requisite send out of the statement to all of my girlies so I can get feedback, but...I think I'm just going to go ahead and apply. I don't want to overthink it, or be talked out of saying exactly what I want to say in exactly the way I want to say it. I may have learned too much to be a good fit for academia now, though apparently I haven't learned enough to stop asking academia for acceptance. I can't decipher if that's because I firmly believe academia could be what it should be, or because I want to forestall my student loan repayment. A mix of both, perhaps. 

We're moving to NY in a few months. I'm so excited to finally say goodbye to this factory reject dildo of a state. 

What the fuck kind of bullets do you use against existential dread: Santa Fe, Oklahoma City, and Missouri, Day eight, nine, and home

And the day I had been looking most forward to had finally arrived. 

I realized I hadn't taken a photo of my room for the blog, so I took one as I was heading out to Meow Wolf. There it is! La Quinta Inn. Wow.

All I really wanted back when I was planning this trip was to stop in Santa Fe and go to the original Meow Wolf. House of Eternal Return. I really enjoyed seeing Omega Mart (see my post a few days prior if you want those sweet, sweet details). I woke up way too early, my ticket was for 10:20am, but when it was finally time for me to go, off I went. And I. Was. EXCITED. 

It was WAY busier than this picture makes it look. The parking lot was actually packed, I just hid it really well.

The little cafe at Meow Wolf. I wanted to eat there, but there was nothing for me to eat. I had to grab a photo of it, though. So fucking cute. 

The outside of the house. BIG TIME Real Unreal vibes, but since this is the OG, Real Unreal has big time House of Eternal Return energy. 

I'm not sure how to go about posting the photos from here, because almost all of them I took for me to go back an unravel the mystery a little further. I spent about 5 hours here, and I didn't fully read everything the way I wanted, but there's no real need to post every single photo I took.

It took about 35 minutes to watch all of the videos, read all of the papers in the manilla envelope, and go through the entire journal and folder. 

So you have to earn this code by reading stuff and being curious. One thing that really irks me about Meow Wolf is seeing people just...walk by all of the story? Like there is so much richness and lore in Meow Wolf that is right there for people to investigate, and they just walk right by it without examining it. I will say, I thought this was intentional, initially, but I did make friends with a few people at House of Eternal Return who were flabbergasted when I told them there was a mystery to solve at each location. I can't imagine they're the only ones who were unaware, once they pointed out to me that they just thought this was a fun, zany art installation. I softened my irritation at everyone just walking by while very few people sat and read everything. 

Post-post edit: After posting on Reddit to say how much I loved the writing of Emerson's journal, I was told...I believe by another story dev at Meow Wolf...that the writer of the journal is Christopher J. Johnson. I loved The Five Part Self so much I truly may buy his poetry book. Anyway. Carry on.

I sat and read everything, though. And I'll tell you, I've never been as moved by writing that is meant to be mysterious as I was by some of the things in the granddad's safe in the study. I was openly weeping as I sat reading the grandfather's journal.

This little passage really and truly struck me. I stared at it for about five minutes, chewing on how true it was.

About here is where I started to lose my ability to not cry my way through the journal. I felt real, honest grief. I actually posted an appreciation post about it on the meow wolf subreddit, because the author or authors should know just how fucking good I thought this was. 

I was an emotional wreck after reading that journal, but I was snapped right out of it by listening to the looped video on Nimsesku. 

That kid stymied my ability to read Piper's journal for at least an hour. Love that, it's meant to be read and enjoyed, but I was also selfishly aggravated. I wanted to read it, dammit!

A hidden door behind the bookcase!

The picture book was missing several images on several pages. I wasn't able to assess if that was intentional by the story artists, or if people walking around Meow Wolf have taken a photo or two over the years as a keepsake. 

So this next room was my second favorite part of the House of Eternal Return. I was also in tears in this room, it was just so fucking GOOD. 

I have videos of all of the videos on display in the trash room, but they aren't uploading. I noticed my two other videos I put in other blogs aren't available, either, so I won't waste time putting them in here. Just trust me that they are exactly the message they needed to be, and I was given a new outlook about things because of them. 

I felt aggravated at people coming in and looking at the room and going WOW! So gorgeous, look at how amazing it all is! And leaving without taking stock of what was being said in that room. Maybe I'm a pretentious cunt for that, who fucking knows, but it was something I felt. 

I tried very hard, but could not bring myself to hit the bones hard enough to make them musical. I felt guilty about it. It's art!

YAWLP SIGHTING!!!!

I have a video of myself playing on the theremin and realizing with horror that it was hurting the plant. You can hear me on the video going, "oh no, I'm making the plant scream!" and then I end the video. I WAS ONLY TRYING TO PLAY COLD LITTLE HEART! Blame Michael Kiwanuka!!

I won fuckin' NOTHING. Thanks for nothing, you fuckin' RAT. 

This was pretty much it for Meow Wolf. I have dozens more photos, literally, but my blog keeps saying it won't post them all and I can suck eggs. Which is rude. 

I went back to Sprouts for a bit of lunch, went back to the hotel, and started working on culling images from my shoots in Vegas. I had my dinner, packed up my shit, and got ready to leave for the next leg of the trip, a one night stay in OKC. 

I woke up the next morning early enough to leisurely have my Red Bull, have my morning poops, and make my way out of town at 7am. There was a fire somewhere nearby when I left, I could smell it. I opted to drive my car to E rather than filling up in Santa Fe, gas was pricey there. I had an eight hour drive ahead of me that was pretty fucking uneventful. 

Oklahoma is the worst state. Honestly. The second I crossed into the state, I felt weird. Like I did not belong. That state has bad fuckin' energy, man, and by the time I got to the hotel, as blasted as I was, I told Derek I kind of wanted to take an hour-ish nap, and then just drive home. My room was gross, the people were gross, everything was gross, AND I was in Oklahoma. Gross. But Derek convinced me to spend the night there and drive home in the morning. 

And upsettingly, I took the advice. 

I got my Jinya in OKC. It was so fucking middling that I didn't even photograph it as I had intended. Oklahoma City wigs me out, I am hoping to never have to return there. I joked that if Rhyann ever asks to go visit OKC to see their brother or their dad and step mom, I'm gonna say no so if there's another accident, Derek and I don't have to go back to OKC to get them. That state sucks. That city sucks. 

I woke up with a severe start at 3:45 the next morning, went to the gas station, got gas and a Red Bull, and fucking bounced. I didn't even wait for sunrise, I just fucking left. At 4am, I made my way home. I am nightblind, so driving in the dark is a gamble, but it was a gamble I was willing to make to get the fuck out of Oklahoma. 

Sunrise was very pretty, though. 

Pretty and foggy. I was so relieved when I crossed over into Missouri. I hate this state, too, but it doesn't feel like Oklahoma. 

And five hours later, I was home. I had such a busy trip, it was overwhelming, and it was over. 

Now we have to get ready to move. Just a few more months left in this state and then off we go to somewhere new!