Completed 09.18.10
I haven't updated in ahwhile, but I have a semi-good reason for this...I've been accomplishing #83 , I moved out of Escanaba!! In addition to the actual packing and moving, I was also spending a lot of time doing lots of stuff with my friend Barbi before I moved away. And also avoiding packing. That took up a lot of time.
Here's how I ended up in Escanba: I went to school at Northern Michigan University, in Marquette, Michigan, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (most people outside of Michigan have no idea what this is...there are two pieces to Michigan, if you look at a map, there's the one part that looks like a mitten, and above that is a part that looks like a rabbit, attached to Wisconsin. That's the U.P.), on Lake Superior. I loved living in Marquette, I can't imagine a more beautiful city. It was a great mix of nature, historic buildings, local businesses, small-town charm and friendliness, and everything within walking distance. I would never have wanted to leave Marquette if it wasn't 8 hours away from all of my friends and family. And I never managed to really make any friends there, so it was a pretty lonely place. So I always knew I'd move away. Robert graduated a year before me, and immediately got a job in Escanaba, an hour south of Marquette, on the shore of Lake Michigan. When I graduated, I moved back in with him.
Here's why I wanted out: Escanaba always seemed like a consolation prize compared to Marquette. It was on a Great Lake, of course, one that occasionally got warm enough to swim in. But Lake Superior is my favorite Great Lake, even if it's freezing cold most of the year. There's just a spooky strength to Superior, and I felt much more of an admiration for Superior than Lake Michigan. And yes, Escanaba has some small-town charm, being in the U.P. and all. But we also found it mostly boring. Especially in the cold parts of the year. Also, people in Esky always seemed like they were in a bad mood! Cashiers, waiters, no one said hello when you walked past them on the street. Dont' even get me started on the workers at Subway. It just wasn't a fun place to live.
Here's how it turned out: I spent the winter/spring rarely leaving the house except for work/substitute teaching, and grocery shopping/Taco Bell with Robert. Once the weather got nice and I could venture outside more often, things looked up. I fell in love with the city's park--all the open space, small islands and sandy beach. It was just a 5-minute bike ride from my house so I started going there on sunny weekday mornings before the heat became unbearable. I also started spending more and more time with my friend Barbi, a woman from Escanaba who I met in the School of Ed at college. At first I was just glad to have someone to spend time with outside the house, but we became pretty close, and I really valued the time we spent together.
Here's how I got out: Robert and I had been looking for jobs in the lower peninsula since before I graduated from college. In addition to disliking living in Esky, Robert also did not like his job since most of the time he had nothing to do at work. But, it's Michigan, we have one of the worst economies in the country, and I'm a teacher on top of that...schools are downsizing, no one has any money for education or hiring new teachers. But after a lot of trying, and a couple other phone interviews, Robert got a job in Ann Arbor! He's an actual engineer now, and he got a pay raise to boot. We got an apartment in Ypsilanti, actually just on the border between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. As sad as I am about leaving the U.P., the area is just 45 minutes from the Detroit area/most of my best friends and family, and a couple of old friends live in Ypsi. The only things that I didn't like about living in the U.P. was being so far away from everyone (except R) that I loved, and a lack of cultural opportunities (shows, museums, general happenings). Ypsi and Ann Arbor are both college towns, so there's plenty to do, and lots of good restaurants of all types to explore! And as overwhelming and culture shock-y as it is to move from the U.P. back to the city, our apartment has a balcony that looks onto a little lake with a small island, and lots of geese and ducks and a couple cranes (we even saw a woodchuck once), so I still have some calming green space to look at.
Yay!
