Monthly Archive for June, 2005

Got the guided tour of the Mayo today – crazy impressive. My Ol’ Budd Bri showed me his research area:

:: click images for larger ::

He does stuff that I couldn’t even begin to explain, other than to say thank God that he’s doing it.

He then gave me the guided tour, during which I took some pics. In this age of heightened security awareness, it has become increasingly difficult to take photographs in public places without feeling like there are at least three people that have dialed 91 – and are just waiting for you to do something crazy before they hit that last ’1′. You gain something, and you lose something. Here’s some of the stuff that was there. That was the worst sentence that has ever been in the blog.

Enjoy!

:: click images for larger ::

All Images ©2005 Otis & James Photography

We finally found a hotel with a room. It’s right by my favorite place, The Mall of America!! Here’s the view from our room window:

I’ve heard good things about the store, but there’s no time to shop. I’ve got to get out of here and down to Rochester, but I thought that I would tell you about our morning. You see, James left on a jet aero-plane this morning, to visit one of our favorite blog-posters, Reba! Her flight left at 7AM, so we had to get her there around five.

On our way there, we had the crazy experience of driving right by some sort of a crime scene (or so the yellow tape said). As it goes, we saw a lot of flashing lights and cars parked outside of a hotel near the Mall. We proceeded with caution (as we had to keep going down the street to get to the freeway), and as we were directly across from this scene, we looked over and saw that there was actually a dead body covered with a sheet mere feet from our car. Straight out of an episode of CSI, or Law and Order, right there as real as could be.

It was totally surrreal. There was this glorious light of sunrise bathing everything – but where did it end for this soul that was covered on the sidewalk? Did the darkness of a Saturday night stay too long, was it at the hands of another, or was it just their time? I have seen many sunrises, many on the tail end of nights that lasted too long, but none like this. Crazy.

Well, I still managed to get James off to the airport, and then returned to the hotel to bring you this post. I’m off momentarily to Chesterville, and I will bring more news from there.

:: click for full-size map of trip so far ::

(actual state sizes may vary)