Grand Marais, MN
Mailed June 29,1992
I am at my sisters on Saturday at 10:17 am. Mike and Jill are getting ready to go up to Grand Marais with us. Lars is changing his oil in the car right now and will call me back when he is done. Jill and Mike are leaving earlier for than us, but they have a campsite arranged for us up there, and they will stay in Mike's brother's house. I can't decide if I want to go to Toronto or Montreal. Montreal would mean a possible trip to Boston and the shoreline. But I've been told that you can't really see the ocean anyway, so it is not that exciting. Otherwise, if we go through Toronto, we go down through upper New York State, which is supposed to be beautiful too. I don't know. I guess, wherever we happen to go will be fine. Montreal is more like a European city, but Toronto is more of an American city that is more accessible to people wanting to see open-air markets and a modern city. Both are free of crime my source says.
We started late, because Lars had to return his sleeping and buy another. We are now 13 miles from Duluth behind an aqua Gold Wing and a Pepsi van listening to Snow-blind Friend , reading poetry from Norton's Anthology to pass the time, and similar thoughts. Lars liked lessons of war when I read it.
When Lars and I arrived in Grand Marais, we stopped at Cascade State Park to see if Jill had checked us in there, and to use the phone to call and see where we were to go. There was a campground in Grand Marais that we stayed at. We went there, set up the tent and everything. Jill found us and we followed her to Paul's house. This house and the area around it were great. It was nestled in a birch tree patch, or more like a forest of birches. large rocks were placed in key areas to offset the driveway. The house was newly gutted and refurbished, they had knocked out an entire side and added eight feet more to the house. It was simply decorated with very expensive furniture, a leather couch with excellent woodwork a whirlpool bath, a framed glass shower, which I squeezed this morning, and other very tasteful accommodations.
Outside the house, a perfect lawn, not a weed or bare-grass area was in sight. there was a wonderful second story porch on two sides. Actually the buildings frame reminded me of a barn that had been made into a house.
Paul and Rose Ann treated us to a lasagna dinner and we sat there till 10 PM. Then we went back to camp. I used the glassed in phone booth that I distinctly remember as red. We went to bed. The rain and storms that night were particularly bad. Our tent was very wet when we woke up on Sunday morning. Lars and I went to search for bears at the sanitary landfill 10 miles on the Gunflint Trail, we were told it was a hot spot. We found prints, but no bears.
We went down to the shoreline and took some photos. Jill and the others picked us up at the campsite at 10 PM. We ate breakfast foods at a local joint. We ate and I finished writing a letter.
1992
Nottingham, UK
I went to the University PB and saw Kate and Lucy Telfor and Harvey and more. I ate with Kate, ran errands with her and then walked her home. Her roommate had been locked in the bathroom all morning until she burst the door latch and ran to a neighbor's house without else but a towel. I went home after Kate's, got situated, and took pictures on the way there. Later, after cleaning and packing, I went to the Black Orchid. I met some people I knew from my bus route on the way there. Kate and Malcolm provided some bonding moments for me. I wandered around to find Illiana or Maria or other international students, but they weren't there. I hung around with Fiona from the bus route, and then went home. I stayed up really late, and was tired the next day.
1994
Rachel got up with me for breakfast, and we went to Doc's Blue Moose. I realized before I left for work that she would need help setting up the projector, so I planned to stay a few hours. We hauled two loads of furniture and paints from the YOOH building to the barn and set up to trace the projected image on the background. We found that no one was coming today to paint, and so I decided to take the day off and trace the background and get other work done. I stayed at the barn ALL day long, outside of lunch with Rachel and Gayle at Doc's. I eventually got out of rehearsal at 21:15 to take the motorcycle home before it got dark. I came back and we finished our main Shakespeare scene.
2010