A South Bend Sojourn

Yesterday [Saturday] Mike Sims and I went to Notre Dame. Our original idea was to go camping [likely at PJ Hoffmaster State Park] but that wouldn't work out and would probably be miserable considering the weather. Why the sudden urge to take flight from MSU? We wanted to get away from Lansing for a bit and explore. Notre Dame has a campus worthy of the highest praise. Surprisingly it does not have a "college town" nearby. When on campus we went to the 14-story main Library that overlooks most of campus. From there we went to Subway for some lunch in their Student Center. After a few hours just wandering around we went into the heart of South Bend [a city plagued with planning nightmares as I learned this summer]. It didn't seem as bad as I expected. There is a very large 4-lane, one-way boulevard running the length of the city. There is also a man-made kayak course right downtown called East Race. It wasn't operating when we were there. Still a cool idea for a public park.

In other news I have two papers to finish/write by Monday/Wednesday respectively.