T - 7 Days and counting...

One week from right now we should be taxiing to the runway in Salt Lake City (SLC) for the flight to Detroit -- not that I'm counting the time or anything like that. 172 hours to arrival.

Tickets were bought and hotels and car reserved weeks ago. Now the second stage of preparations begins, which is merely for me to get an appointment for a haircut and beard trim, it having been a month since the last and I don't want to show up looking like Santa Claus or worse. (I grew the beard when I entered grad school, a year before I met Kathy; she's never seen me without it -- this is A Good Thing!)

I should check the travel kit; I know the moustache pomade (Kathy's idea) container is low and I need to refill it. And put some sunblock along with mosquito repellent in it -- something I never carry because when away I spend most of my days holed up in meeting rooms.

Probably this weekend I'll get both cameras charged -- though I haven't even offloaded the Crater Lake photos for processing, and with the difficult lighting they're going to take a lot of work to get just right. I may even have to resort to a little "High Dynamic Range" processing. But here's a picture of Crater Lake taken Saturday, untouched except to scale it down (and yes, the water is that blue); if you click on it I think it will show a larger image.

And just for fun my all-time favorite, Strasbourg in September.

Hoping to bring back some great photos from Midland. They may have to last me a long, long time -- or at least until the Grand Michigan Tour. Kathy doesn't have the time off from work this time but she has also never been to Michigan. (Being stranded in DTW doesn't count.) I remember it as a beautiful state though my memories are way too old. But I have heard others who left more recently, or who visit from time to time, say the same. And there are so many places to see, among them:

- Houghton Lake

- Farwell (played with "Up With People" there in '67)

- Alpena (Boy Scout camp?) and some bay nearby

- Presque Isle (Camp Chickagamee? -- a woman in our church also went there!)

- Mackinac Island, Mackinaw City and the Bridge (a few years ago I learned from a new member of our church, a Yooper, that I'm a "Troll": I lived under the bridge)

- Traverse City (I never got there but wanted to go)

- the beaches on Lake Michigan

- Holland

- Kalamazoo ("Camp Farthest Out" at a college/university there?)

- Ann Arbor

- and a tour through the UP if time allows.

But that's all for another time. And preferably late May/early June, or late September/early October for the fall colors. We have fall colors in Seattle too, most years, but very very muted.