Susan the Human

The Great Southwest Road Trip

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 22:37:52 -0600

Don't miss this photo-rich travel essay compilation including Mesa Verde, the Rockies, Navajo country & Canyon de Chelly, Taos, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Carlsbad Caverns...and more!

Susan the Human: Great Southwest Road Trip

The Great Southwest Road Trip Diary 2004

Go to Part 10: The End of the Grand Tour
Go to Part 9: Petrified Forest, AZ; Zuni, NM; El Morro & El Malpais Nat'l Parks, NM.
Go to Part 8: Navajoland & Canyon de Chelly, AZ
Go to Part 7: Silverton-Durango Railroad, CO
Go to Part 6: Mesa Verde, CO
Go to Part 5: San Juan Skyway, CO
Go to Part 4: Pagosa Springs, CO
Go to Part 3: Taos, NM
Go to Part 2: Santa Fe and Las Vegas, NM
Go to Part 1: Albuquerque and Carlsbad, NM

New blog with new focus

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 21:11:52 -0600

Welcome to the Susan the Human photoblog, now retired. Don't miss my past entries on A Week in Rome wth tons of pics and some travel advice as well. If you're planning a trip to the place, this is a good place to start.

Browse through the rest for many pics of Northern California, Minnesota, and beyond.

My new blog, launched in 2007, is a combination photoblog / literary / fiction / nonfiction blog, and you can get there from here:

Go to Mackerel Street: The Writing Life

Cleveland, part 1

Sun, 21 Jan 2007 00:26:40 -0600

Cleveland is a city that gets a lot of crap. Cleveland has sustained the careers of many middling comedians. I spent a week in Cleveland--last week, in fact--and though it appears much of what the comedians say is true, it is a unique and surprisingly dramatic place. At least the weather was dramatic. As the storm raged offshore in Lake Erie, my coworker and I explored the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Christmas Story House, a late night comedy club, and tried to find the brighter side of this gritty, industrial city on the northern edge of the United States. More photos, including that infamous leggy lamp, on the flip.

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:19:35 -0600

A little treat as I prepare a photo essay on...wait for it...CLEVELAND! All right, I did actually find some interesting pictures in Cleveland. Just think, tune in on Sunday for the Cleveland photo essay, and then You'll never have any reason to actually go there.

Some tulips in front of my home in Minnesota, Spring 2006.

Weblog adventures coming round - Northward we go!

Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:25:50 -0600

Ok, so I went on a big experiment with Joomla, which, while technically fascinating, didn't cut it. So I'm coming back to the Susan the Human blog and hopefully will start updating again. Apologies to new readers who have dropped in to find posts well in the past. There's plenty here, though, and be sure to check out the Italy pictures (see link on right to "A Week in Rome") as well as the other past collections. Prints are available for most photos here. If not already available on my Smugmug site please send me an email and I'm happy to make the photo available on Smugmug. I'm traveling to Minnesota's Boundary Waters in two weeks, and to Cleveland, Ohio, next week, so we'll see which one photographs better. Ok, I'm being a bit snarky. But you never know what you might find in Cleveland...as for Boundary Waters, snow, ice, trees, cozy cabins...it should be good. Check back in at the beginning of February for new pics from new adventures. PS: graphic issues which are present in some browsers are being addressed--apologies for weirdness in the banner.

Welcome to Fall

Sat, 01 Oct 2005 12:25:45 -0600

Northern Minnesota is ablaze with color at the moment, but there are spots of brilliance to be found in the greater Twin cities right no w as well. I took a walk through the local Blaine Open Space preserve, and found numerous stands of deep, luscious red.

The forest here was hit hard in the storm a couple of weeks ago that produced an F2 tornado. In addition to the tornado, which hit west of here, 70-80mph downdrafts snapped many trees in the forest. But 95% survived, and the colors are beginning to show.

I have not been eaten by a kitten

Fri, 23 Sep 2005 11:46:18 -0600

Despite rumors to the contrary, I have not been eaten by a kitten. The kitten is getting bigger, but she is not yet big enough to eat me. When she gets that big, I will wrap myself in cellophane to thwart her people-eating tendencies. I have heard that this works. This blog has been quiet for a while, though my camera has not. I have literally hundreds of pics from the drive across America (new readers: I just moved from San Francisco area to Minneapolis) and I have many lovely pics of my new state, including Itasca State Park with the beginning of fall color last weekend. I am going to reconfigure the blog a little bit in the next couple of weeks, and it will become a wildlife blog focused on observing the behavior of Minnesotans in their natural environment (this would be out in the country, or inside a restaurant consuming Hot Dish). If I can find the resources, I may tranquilize a couple of Minnesotans, attach radio collars, and track their movements, though I am told this may be illegal under some obscure legislation. We had an F2 tornado in my new town, Blaine, yesterday. A house got ripped apart. My place was fine, but we had quite a scare. The Minnesotans appeared to have some advance knowledge of the storm, as several of them were seen busily cramming boxes of fruit into the corners of their garages to make room for their cars. It appears the Minnesotan has an aversion to hail damage. Contrast this to the Californian, who, when hail appears, says, "dude, hail!" and proceeds to stare for the duration of the downfall. It is a clear blue sunny day here on the first full day of fall, birds chirping, squirrels rummaging, and gigantic old trees uprooted and lying askew in the road. As they say at the airport, Welcome to Minnesota.

Clemens Garden, St. Cloud: Butterfly

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 07:02:09 -0600

A little ways north of the Minneapolis metro area is the modest metropolis of St. Cloud. Clearly an agriculture center, it isn't exactly a tourist mecca, but it does have a gorgeous set of gardens near the Mississippi.

The Clemens gardens sit on a hill above the river (Yes, a sizeable hill. They are few and far between up here...). It's done up English-style, meaning tons of flowers, nice symmetrical displays, and quaint fountains. It is immaculately tended, rivalling in quality, though not in size, the Butchart Gardens in Vancouver Island, BC. More after the link...

Evening on a lake

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 22:14:55 -0600

Minnesota's lakes are hidden around every corner, every cluster of trees. I found this one after getting lost somewhere in East Bethel, Anoka County, over the weekend.

PS--Comments are now working. Typekey accounts are accepted, or you can comment without as I've taken some anti-spam precautions.

Greetings from Minnesota

Sat, 06 Aug 2005 21:33:48 -0600
Driving around Brainerd, Minnesota today, I encountered this health-conscious bowling Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. Note that Babe is conscientiously advertising a smoke-free bowling area. He is also eating bowling pins the size of small children.
ps--still working on getting the comments back.

Comment comment

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 14:45:38 -0600
Comments are re-enabled, but now require Typekey registration. Typekey handles the user accounts for commenters on many, many major blogs so you will likely use it more than here. It works fine after you sign up, and they don't spam you or otherwise cause problems. You can also remain anonymous. I had no choice, I was getting 400+ poker spam comments a day on this blog alone. I'm afraid this is the future of the internet, folks, casual commenting and email are being destroyed by spam.

Minnekitty for Minnesota

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 12:52:45 -0600
Aaaaah...two weeks in Minnesota. So far, I have been treated to a solid week of 95 degree days with 70% or more humidity. Just cooled down in time for me not to fall over dead. Over the weekend I attempted to drive up to Taylor's Falls on the St. Croix River for some sightseeing, but on the way was kidnapped and forced to adopt an exceptionally cute furry little beast from the North Woods Humane Society. The point of this was to provide daytime company to my large, grumpy ball of fur known as Harry the Cat. Well, he may not appreciate it, but he sure has company...
It was a sinister operation all around. I was driving innocently along highway 8 through a thickly forested area, and suddenly a sign appeared, advertising "adoptions today!". What kind of sick monster would put up a sign like that I may never know. Nevertheless, in I went, against the very core of my better judgement.

Temporary hiatus

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 19:24:20 -0600
Update: comments are temporarily turned off to thwart the poker-spammer-beasts that have been plaguing it. I will be upgrading to the latest version of Movable Type (my blogging software) and it contains an electrocution device for spam commenters. I look forward to implementing it. Should have everything sorted out by next week. ****** The last month I've been in the throes of a cross country move to Minnesota, and have put the blog on a hiatus. I'll start putting putting up new photoessays in about two weeks, when, god willing, I have my furniture and my real computer (3 year old laptop without enter key: not fun). I might start off with a post comparing Minnesota to California. In the meantime, comment spammers have been hitting me with upwards of 400 poker-related comments a day. I've been killing them and banning IPs best I can, but until I have more time to tinker with movable type the best I can do is require approval of comments. This means your comment may not appear for 24-48 hours, but it will eventually and be fully appreciated in this lonely outpost of the blogosphere. That is, all will appear except for my fellow blogger who left a nice comment recently asking what I'm up to...I accidentally deleted his comment in the Great Anti-Poker Comment Offensive of 2005. Apparently I have no way to get it back. I guess we would call that "collateral damage". For new readers, when I return this blog will be updated a little to reflect my new location (north of Minneapolis) and the focus will be photoessays about California and Minnesota, as well as the spectacular drive east we just finished last week. One word: Pronghorns. To receive notifications whenever this blog is updated, send mail to susan (at) mackerelstreet.com with the word "subscribe" in the subject line. Your email will not be distributed or used for any other purpose than notification of posts to this blog. To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address with "unsubscribe" in the subject line.

El Derecho, or, When Air Attacks

Tue, 21 Jun 2005 05:28:49 -0600
Yesterday I was treated to my first scary Minnesota weather episode, if you don't count the twenty below when I was here in January, which you probably should. The gist of it is that a massive blackish-green wall of doom stretching for miles in either direction advanced on my humble office. I went out and took a couple of pictures, and while I snapped away the air was completely calm, but moments after I went back inside it hit like a giant leafblower (us being the hapless leaves).
More...

Lake Harriet, Minneapolis

Sun, 19 Jun 2005 19:03:39 -0600
Apologies for the radio silience, so to speak. Been madly busy finalizing arrangements for my new home in the Minneapolis area. To celebrate the move, and the fact that for one brief moment the weather here in Minnesota (80 degrees, sunny, low humidity) is actually far superior to the weather I left back in Northern California (raining, in my hometown, even pouring), I took a lovely walk around Lake Harriet. Let's get down to business:
Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis offer some of the loveliest walks you'll find in a city, beautiful lakes, lush foliage, and a wonderful arrangement in which the bicyclists and roller bladers are on one dedicated path, and you're on another one, so you don't get run over. Someone give the genius who thought that up a medal, please. There is only one drawback to these idyllic settings, and that's the air traffic. Yesterday the drone of landing planes at nearby MSP was deafening. But perhaps different wind patters would have them coming down over a different part of the city on some days. Bathers didn't mind, as kids splashed in the water, the bandshell stuck out like a fairy castle in the background, and the whole thing seemed like a different universe from the Minnesota I saw at twenty below in January.
The bandshell looks like it needs an army of elves to guard it.
But the other castles loom in the distance, and the tops of their towers are one of the only landmarks you can use to discover at which point on the very round lake path you have landed. I got lost at one point and ended up driving around it twice, even after I had walked around it once.
More on the flip...