Crab apples. I'd tried to get a pic of these on August 31, but every attempt was blurry. I probably had the camera on the regular setting, rather than the "macro" setting.....
So I tried again, and this time I got some clear shots.
Sunflowers at the farmers' market.
Michigan was to play Notre Dame. At 8:00 pm. The camera says this pic was taken at 10:26 am. There was a rally on campus, and the blimp was over the rally (we saw video taken from the blimp on tv).
Zinnias, snapdragons, cock's comb. Love the textures and colors and shapes.....
Sunflowers, gone to seed. I knew there were lots of different sunflowers for flowers, but hadn't realized there were so many kinds that were meant for seeds. This looks like at least four kinds.....
Love the pattern the seeds make.
It's hard to overstate how disruptive to your regular life it can be, to have 80 or 90,000 people come into town for a game.
Our regular bread & milk grocery store is about a mile from the stadium. We always avoid going when we think the game traffic will be bad. We thought it wouldn't be bad, nine hours before game time, but we were wrong. Very wrong.
We usually turn right out of Busch's parking lot, onto Ann Arbor/Saline Road (which turns into Main street, a block closer to town than Busch's), then take Main to Scio Church to 7th and back to our neighborhood. Piece of cake, Bob's your uncle (as they say in England).
There was SO much traffic on Ann Arbor/Saline Road that we turned right out of the parking lot onto Main (going east). Here we are waiting to turn out onto Main. See the blimp? I expect it was still over campus.
Main to Eisenhower, Eisenhower to Ann Arbor/Saline (there's a light there). Three light changes to get through that intersection, because the idiots blocked the intersection. We turned AWAY from town on Ann Arbor/Saline, and then were delayed here by more idiots.
No. People! DO NOT GO unless you are sure you can get through the intersection!!!!!!! If you block the intersection, IT IS YOUR FAULT, even if you entered the intersection when the light was green!
We were able to squeeze through the gap between the two white vehicles in the intersection ahead of us here, but people in the lane beside us couldn't.
Here's the middle of the pic above, so you can see the traffic headed toward town and the stadium.....
Looking a bit to the right, here is the traffic coming off I94, coming from the west. These people all want to join that line of solid traffic, above, and will probably block the intersection when it's their chance to do so.
You can see, just barely, the strip mall that is beyond the traffic, above.
We went into its parking lot, went out the back way onto Oak Valley, and headed for Scio Church. There was way too much traffic on Oak Valley, and Scio Church headed east was solid. Okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. We turned west on Scio Church (two lights to get through....). We took Scio Church to Wagner, Wagner to Dexter, and got back to our neighborhood.
It took us at least three times as long in time, and much longer in distance to get home than it should take.
Why anyone wants to participate in this sort of herd madness I really can't understand.
It's hard to get there, it's hard to park. You're mashed in crowds the whole time, especially in the stadium, where each person is allotted about 18" on the bleacher bench, so you have to interleaf your shoulders with the next person because you can't sit straight and all fit. There's no back to your seat. It's far to the bathroom and hard to squeeze in and out to get there. The game goes on for hours and hours. You can't see as well as you could if you watched the game on tv. You're not allowed to bring water or food into the stadium (!!!). Did I mention it's grotesquely expensive? And that you're sitting out in the weather the whole time?
I don't understand it..............................
Our knowledge of the meaning of "a bad time to go near the stadium" has been expanded. We'll use that expanded knowledge, in the future, to avoid the madness!
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2 comments:
Well, you won't need to worry about the Notre Dame crowd any more since this is the last time, at least reportedly the last time, they will play UM in Ann Arbor. That probably contributed to the amount of traffic and the early arrival of folks.
My brother went to the game with my niece and said it was a blast. Good game - a UM win - and the band show at half time was terrific. They turned out the lights in the stadium and had a laser show on the field, and lots and lots of people wearing their glowing bracelets and lots of students were wearing their UM Credit Union flashing glasses. A friend of his gave him the tickets and they are an easy walk from the stadium.
It certainly was crazy around here, much earlier than usual. US 23 and Washtenaw area was nuts by noon.
My feelings about all this were indelibly intensified that year we had to pick up the garbage left behind by "fans" on that golf course across from the stadium. I can't think about the people who come into town early without having all of my "we picked up their &)#($#$^ garbage!!!" memories burgeon to the surface.........
[cleansing breath...................]
Football at night -- what a concept! :-)
I'm glad R & S had a good time. I know they weren't amongst the throngs of garbage-spewers. I suspect that if only people who wanted to enjoy the game were there (and those who come mostly to revel in all the pre-game intersection-blocking, and gorging, and garbage-tossing would stay home and trash their own space), the whole experience could be sort of cool, rather than being ... what it is.
We expect to wait interminably to get across Main Street to go to the farmers' market on home-game days. We don't expect to not be able to get home from the library, on the back roads, nine hours before game time........... Or -- we didn't. We will next time. We won't assume it's safe to go near that part of town on game day, unless the game is ON at the moment. And it's before half time.
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