Photos From East Lansing

I really fell down on the job of finishing this post about my trip to East Lansing. The upshot of it was that Y and I went to the library and worked and talked a lot. It does not seem momentous, but it did somehow change things in my mental landscape. It made me feel worthwhile and appreciated.

At about mid-afternoon, Y went home to take care of her daughter. I stayed on at the library, working very hard. I did, however, seize my one opportunity to walk around and look at things. Below are pictures I took during a half-hour walking around break I decided to take. I was worried about getting lost in the town-sized campus, so I decided just to make a circuit around the library (clock-wise).

One of the most noticeable land-marks was a big tower:



Here is a picture of the library, which was spacious and new-feeling, and had pretty reflective windows:



As I went around the corner, my attention was immediately captured by a river that was flowing by behind the library. It was a good-sized river!



There was a bridge over it, whence I took this picture. On the other side of the bridge was a stadium I think.



Back to the back-side of the library, where there was an awesome botanical garden. It was all under snow of course, but it must be really gorgeous in the summer:



Two plants from the botanical garden, some winter-hardy collard-type green, and something with white fluff.





Finally, on the far side of the library from where I'd started, ornamental grasses:



And a dry fountain, in which the snow had been shaped (raked? stamped down? shoveled?) into an impressively clean spiral pattern. It was quite startling and very nice really, like a zen garden.



It was pretty cold, so after one circuit around the library I was quite happy to get back inside. I worked really hard, both that evening and the next morning. Y came to the hotel again, and we discussed some questions I had as well as chatting more generally about the field we are both in. And then the shuttle driver took me back to the train station.

The trip was really worthwhile, even if the hotel was a bit pricey. (It WAS very comfortable anyway, good place to work.) I came back feeling a lot more confident.