charismatic megafauna since 1985

Newaygo, MI

I spent 6 days in Newaygo with Tess and her family, the longest I’d spent anywhere since leaving our apartment in Massachusetts. After spending 4-12 hours in a car every day for a month it was nice to settle down somewhere, even for a short period of time.

We played a lot of Scrabble. They’re all quite good at the game as they’ve been playing for some time now, and it was a lot of fun to play the game in a different group than I’m used to.

I went walking in the Muskegon with Kathy (Tess’ mom) while Tess and Rod (Tess’ dad) were in Grand Rapids working on a house. It’s the end of the salmon run so she was pointing out the beds where the salmon laid their eggs, and even one salmon that was still swimming around. We also walked up to a little waterfall that runs into the river, and down the river a bit to see some gulls, no doubt sated from a feast of dead salmon. I’d never walked anywhere with waders before (the waterproof overalls that fishers wear), so that was fun experience for me. When you’re just walking around in the water up to the shoes it doesn’t feel strange at all, but once you get in up to your knees or higher, the water pressure presses all of the clothing tight around your body and the current feels like it will sweep you away.

There’s a table-tennis table in their basement, and I played a couple rounds against Kathy and against Tess. Unlike in Scrabble, where I’ve learned the skills well enough to hold my own, I lost handily at ping-pong. I love playing it though so the losses don’t bother me at all; I was just glad to play.

All of the Geers-Misak clan are liberal, so we had a good time watching the last presidential debate. Tess and I had listened to all the others (including the VP debate) on the radio while we were travelling, but this was the first one I’d gotten to see. It apparently was McCain’s best performance, which makes me concerned about the others. He was constantly interrupting Obama while ignoring the responses Obama made to his comments. Looking at the polling afterwards, respondents said Obama won the debate 2-1.

On Saturday, we went for a kayak down the Muskegon. It was a beautiful day, clear and warm enough. We set out around 11am and had a leisurely paddle down back to the house. Lots of fishers were out trying to catch the last of the salmon, but I only saw one living salmon during the paddle. There were some live turtles, though, and some swans.

It was hard to leave Tess yesterday morning. We started dating about a month after she moved in with Meg and I and we haven’t been apart more than a week or so since then. Now she’s staying in Newaygo to work, apply to graduate school and see her family and I’m back in Maryland for a bit before I leave for my European tour. We survived spending almost every hour together on the road trip, so I’m hopeful that we can survive this time apart as well.