Working second shift has totally screwed my sleep pattern. I can almost never get to sleep before 3am now, and then Bart gets up for work at 5:30-ish, which wakes me up. Sometimes I can’t get back to sleep right away, so I end up staying up most of the morning doing laundry or watching tv. Then around 10-11am I get sleepy again and try to nap until 2pm so I can at least get a little more sleep before work. This doesn’t always work though, and sometimes (seeming more often as of late) I go to work with about 2-3 hours of sleep.

Speaking of work, I have my first performance review next Wednesday. Which is the 13th, and also my “Friday” since I get Thursday and Friday off each week. So I am a wee bit nervous. And confused, because the higher-ups in the review meeting are Travis and Chris1, neither of which do I interact on a even a weekly basis, much less daily. Though Travis does IM me sometimes to ask how things are going.

I’m wanting to get back into painting again, but, there is just never any time. Which goes back to the 2nd shift sleep deprivation problem. I think I’m wasting too much time trying to sleep or catching up on my sleep to get anything else done besides the bare necessities like laundry.

Moving on.. Bart & I determined that we’re not taking the I-75 route (OH, KY, TN, NC, SC) to Charleston SC, for Alex & Nicole’s wedding – instead we’re going to go through OH, WV, VA, NC, SC. In preparation for that trip (July 5-9), my car has new brakes. It may be getting the exhaust looked at next week too. I’ll get to add 2 more states to my “visited” list then (I’ve been to OH, VA, and NC previously).

I am currently ripping more of my CD’s to mp3. Hope my computer’s hard drive is in good shape.

I changed the theme on my LiveJournal. I might see if I can match it here. Or not. I need to update this to WordPress 2.2 soon.

Maybe I should try to go back to sleep now.. yep. Good idea.

We drove down on Tuesday, spent most of Wednesday at the Museum, went to dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, and drove back on Thursday.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn downtown, which was a great location, but the hotel itself was kind of crappy and packed with small children and New York goombahs who were there for the Yankees vs Indians games. But, our tickets for the museum and breakfast buffet were included with the room, so it wasn’t all bad.

On Wednesday morning, while waiting for an elevator, another guest at the hotel made a comment to the waiting group “What’s ‘bed tax’?” and Bart zinged him by saying “That’s what they charge tourists.” That still makes me giggle.

Day One – Wed Feb 8 – We left TC at about noon, drove up US31 to Mackinaw City and The Bridge. I wish I had taken some pictures of it because it looks even more awesome in the winter, but alas I did not.

Next we drove on US2 from St. Ignace to Blaney Park, then up Mi-77 to Seney – note to self, visit Seney National Wildlife Refuge on next trip.

Most of this part of the trip was boring, just snow and trees and sky. However, the closer we got to Lake Superior, the thicker the clouds got and by the time we passed the Wildlife Refuge entrance drive it was snowing pretty good – lake effect.

The next leg was along 28 to Munising – note to self, visit Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on next trip. Munising seems like it would be a nice quiet little town to live in – at least in the winter. We continued to follow 28 along Lake Superior toward Marquette. Near Chocolay there is a sign for “Chocolay Downs Road” which had one of its supports broken by (I’m guessing) a passing plow. The sign was pointing *down*. Get it? “Chocolay Downs Road”! Dammit, I wish we would have taken a picture of that too, its more humorous visually.

Marquette – well, I can’t find any pictures of it in Google, but coming into Marquette from 28 the first thing you see are 3 huge smokestacks right along the lakeshore, 2 close together and one up the shore a way. I don’t know if these are power plants or related to the copper industry, but they are pretty impressive. The other notable structure is a ginormous brown/black pier (see this picture, its behind the boat, which itself is massive). Downtown Marquette is a little bit like downtown TC, historical buildings and little specialty shops – which I bet the Marquette locals utilize more than we our downtown here in TC. They do have a Target and a Walmart Supercenter and other “modern” shopping out on US41 toward Negaunee though. But even along the major roads and highways not nearly as busy as it is around here. We stopped at Applebee’s for dinner about 5pm, it was pretty busy but I bet 80%+ of the people in that restaurant were just like us, either passing though or staying at a nearby hotel.

After dinner we continued west on US41 toward L’Anse and Baraga – 2 quaint little towns that we didn’t see much of since by that time it was dark. The road was pretty rough too.There is another quiet little town at the southeast end of Portage Lake called Chassel and from there another 10 minutes or so to Houghton. When we got there, it looked all the MTU greek houses were out working on their snow&ice sculptures. We were tempted to stop and look then, but a) they weren’t finished, and b) we were dead tired. So we pressed on, across the lift bridge and up and over the hills of Hancock to get to Calumet.