Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sunday June 13-Tuesday June 22
University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
We had a nightmare journey to get here - 18 hours overnight by bus from Washington DC. To make matters worse, we were forced off the bus three times, the first two at midnight and three in the morning, purportedly to allow the bus to be cleaned and refuelled, first in Pittsburgh and then again in Cleveland, although they managed not to do either in Pittsburgh. Then, to add insult (and not a small measure of farce) to injury, having just settled off to sleep again, we were ordered to leave the bus once more at four-something in the morning, because the bus was apparently too heavy to go through a road weigh-station, and some jobsworth at the booth decided that the bus could not get past, apparently in the belief that temporarily emptying the passengers would make the bus safer for the rest of the journey. Thanks a bundle, Greyhound!
To cap it all, we had a three and a half hour layover in Detroit at 7 on a Sunday morning. The guidebook said that Detroit had been going through a rough patch for the last 20 or 30 years, and after all of 3 hours in the city, I can well believe it. Veronika described it as a ghost town, and she wasn't far wrong - apart from the staff of the Lafayette Coney Island restaurant, we saw only five people on the streets. At times, it felt like the end of the world had happened, and nobody had bothered to tell us. Even the "People Mover", the elevated railway which supposedly provides the best views of downtown Detroit, was closed. Fortunately, the Coney Island was open all night, allowing us to buy some fine chicken soup for breakfast (I know it sounds weird, but it was the perfect thing in the circumstances).
Anyway, we made it to Ann Arbor without any more problems, save for our (not too) close encounter with a crazy, who spent the entire time waiting for the bus and the three-and-a-half hour trip to Ann Arbor preaching to himself. Our only previous encounter with a crazy had been in Rockville (as in the REM song "Don't Go Back To Rockville"), where a woman came up to us and explained "Hi, I'm really upset, because I hate my job at the library, and they don't give me enough to do, and I'm worried they might think I've got a bad attitude." before moving on to the next victim, repeating the same line, and then cornering some poor bloke on the metro train and repeating herself before breaking down into hysterical sobs.
Having made it to Ann Arbor, Trevor picked us up from the bus station, and we spent the next week just relaxing at Trevor and Jennifer's house in Stockbridge, just outside Ann Arbor. The weather was initially hot and sunny, but it cooled down for a few days before hitting the high 80s again. Still, it was a relief from Washington, where the temperature hit 100 (38 C).
Ann Arbor itself is a very pretty university town, and for some reason it didn't feel like the US to us. The university buildings themselves were built to look older than they actually are, as you can see from the picture below - this building dates from the 1910s:
Inside a quadrangle at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
A more modern part of the university campus
One of the highlights of Ann Arbor for me was the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Although it was considerably smaller than Lonely Planet had led me to believe, it was still very interesting. They had an extensive display of ancient musical instruments, and it was even possible to hear some genuine Egyptian music, a modern rendition thereof, of course! Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take photos of their collection for this web site, as they have their own web site. A team from UMich had organised a dig at the ancient site of Karanis in Egypt, which was the source for much of their collection, and some of their collection can be seen here. I did however, take a picture of the Kelsey Museum itself:
Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Trevor and Jennifer Woollatt do not actually live in Ann Arbor, but in a small community called Stockbridge, about 15 miles from the town. It's basically a farming area, and they have a beautiful house with several acres of land. Jennifer has a very good aesthetic sense, and Trevor is very practical, so that combined with their excellent hospitality, we had a great, relaxing time doing nothing much, although I did manage to do a little translating work, generating some useful income.
Trevor and Jennifer's house from the front ...
... and from the back
The Woollatt's also have a very friendly dog called Remy, a lovely Dalmatian:
Remy the dog, in typically active mode.