Flashback: MTU Trip – Day 2
Go back in time with us as we recount our epic 46-hour round trip bus adventure to Houghton/Hancock for the MTU Spring Career Fair. Just for fun, we pulled this 3-part blog series out of the vault (along with the photo of me in my fleece Labatt pond hockey helmet) to commemorate the 9-year anniversary of the trip Andrea Kerbuski and I made when we were both still working together at Capital Area Michigan Works! (looking back at the crap I put her through, its amazing that we’re still friends today!)
Somewhere on the outskirts of Sault Ste. Marie, day one of our journey turned into day two as midnight came and went rather uneventfully under a shroud of pitch black, northern Michigan sky.
We had changed buses in St. Ignace. I was feeling generous so decided to wake Andrea up to alert her of the switch. At that time, we were notified that we would remain on the same bus for the rest of our trip. The further north we ventured, the more our coincidental travel companions left us. There was one group that all appeared to be headed for Green Bay, Wisconsin, for some sort of family reunion. Then there was the 12-year-old with the Taco Bell travel pack that Andrea almost beat up over some hard shell tacos (never, and I mean never, eat Taco Bell across a bus aisle from a groggy, tacoless Andrea, unless you are actually prepared to make a run for the border). And there were many others – John, the bartender, Phil, the real estate novelist, Davey, who was home on leave from the Navy, one by one they had all gotten off in Petosky, Pellston, Grayling and the other stops along the way.
When our bus pulled into the Newberry station – and by station I mean the patch of designated asphalt next to the “bus stop” sign – our driver announced it over the vehicle’s intercom. I’m not sure what the point was. It was 2:30-something in the morning, and by this time we were the only other people left on the bus besides this kid who had mentioned at least 50 times that he was traveling all the way out to Seattle, Washington. I had just dozed off before the driver’s announcement broke the silence, and like that confusion that ensues when you are awakened out of a dead sleep by the clock radio going off in the pre-dawn darkness playing “Copacabana” (you know, that split second thought that goes through your head as you wonder what is Barry Manilow doing in my bedroom?) I struggled to make sense of the information that had been reported. Once I had my wits about me again, realizing I hadn’t missed anything important, I returned my attention back to getting some much-needed shut eye. This of course was nearly impossible, because during this brief stop, our friend Eddie Vedder from Seattle decided to get up and sit in the seat directly behind me, and proceeded to play EMINEM on his iPod at full volume. I could hear every lyric of every song reverberate through his ear bud with amazing Bose-like audio quality. Recall that we were the only three people on a bus with at least 50 rows of seats, so I’m not sure why he felt compelled to sit right behind me – but at least he had good taste in music (though I was somewhat disappointed and of course surprised that “Pearl Jam” wasn’t included on his playlist.) Eddie and I sat there like that for hours, our only actual exchange of words coming when at one point over the music I heard him ask, “Hey bro do you want a cookie?” to which I politely responded , “No thanks” (while not being able to help myself, as I started to subconsciously hum Kenny Roger’s “Gambler” in my head, although we were on a bus headed for Escanaba and not a train bound for nowhere, and the offer of the cookie just wasn’t the same as the swallow of whiskey and the bummed cigarette romanticized about in those famous lyrics).
The first hints of Tuesday’s sunrise came in the form of a dull, orange colored sky off to our right and behind us as we pulled into Munising. At this point we were on the last leg of our journey to Houghton/Hancock, where we would arrive a couple of hours later – just in time to grab some breakfast at Marie’s Deli before heading over to the MTU campus.
The taxi cab driver (unfortunately I never caught his name) from Neil’s Taxi was your stereotypical U.P.er – funny and kind with a warm spirit that seemed to cut through the frigid morning air. It was only a short ride over to MTU’s Student Development Complex, but between the cabbie’s jokes and the other chatter coming over the radio we found ourselves thoroughly entertained.
We checked in at registration and were directed to the booth that we had been assigned for the career fair. MTU always puts on a great event and this year was no exception, as the entire floor of the Student Development Complex was packed with exhibitor tables. And to their credit, MTU keeps us industry folks busy as the students come out in full force making the long trip from Lansing all worth while. There was a steady stream of students from the time they opened the doors at noon until the event concluded at 6 p.m. I spent the entire time standing on my feetm talking non-stop to the point I wasn’t sure what was going to give out first—my wobbly legs or my failing voice.
All told, I collected about 60 resumes/completed “career opportunity inventory” forms – plus I asked several more students to email me so I could send them electronic versions of the materials when I had started running out of handouts near the end (which is always a good problem to have at a college career fair). I talked to lots of Computer Science majors, as well as students majoring in Computer Engineering, Computer Network and System Administration, Scientific and Technical Communication, and other related IT programs of study.
Before we left the Student Development Complex, I sent Andrea on a mission to the school’s spirit shop to grab some MTU hockey pucks to take back to Lansing as a gift for the boys (which reminds me—I still owe her $6.00). Since we had six hours to kill before needing to catch the bus at the Memorial Union Building for the trip back to Lansing, we decided to take a cab back into town to grab some dinner and see some sights.
If you’ve never been to Houghton/Hancock there are a few things that kind of take you by surprise. Of course there is the snow and bitter cold that you would expect – since it’s practically the furthest north and west you can travel without having to be able to speak Russian or know the lyrics to “Oh, Canada.” The first is that the whole area is really hilly which is crazy when you think about the amount of snow they get up there, but by the way everyone gets around it doesn’t seem to phase anyone. The second is its natural beauty, a collage of tree and snow and rock surrounding the southern shore of the expansive, and equally beautiful Lake Superior. Finally, downtown Houghton/Hancock is quite cosmopolitan, something that you don’t really think about until you understand that many of these northern Michigan communities were built with fortunes made through once booming copper, iron ore and lumber industries. What remains are an assortment of impressive, turn of the century homes and multi-storied brick buildings which stand like monuments to connect the past to the present.
For dinner, Andrea and I settled on the “Library Restaurant and Brew Pub,” a popular establishment situated on Isle Royale Street in the heart of downtown Houghton. We must have looked like homeless nomads carrying all of our belongings around with us, but the restaurant’s hostess was kind enough to let us park our banner display stands and roll-away cart in their storage closet while we ate dinner – so thankfully, we were able to keep the gawking to a minimum, really only having to endure a few weird looks from startled wait staff who witnessed me nearly walk into the kitchen after taking a wrong turn on the way to the bathroom (which with my low vision and superb sense of adventure, is something that happens more frequently than you’d think). After we finished dinner, Andrea ordered some chocolate fudge brownie concoction while I polished off a couple of “Copper Town Ales” to unwind from a long day. Then we grabbed our gear and headed back outside into the cold to wait for the cab ride over to campus to the building the MTU kids affectionately refer to as “The MUB.”