Pittsburgh, Michigan, and Sundsvall!!

Above: Deadeye Spear Chuckin' Hope, showing proper form (especially with the tongue sticking out) in the use of the atlatl... We started our most recent epic journey with a visit to Hopewell Culture National Park in Chilicothe, Ohio. This is a Woodland Period set of mound complexes:

We left Arkansas on a Friday, and drove to Lexington, Kentucky, for our first night. The next day, we went to this park in Ohio to see the mounds and to meet up with Hope's parents. We did not expect to see a woodchuck that had climbed a tree:

I had never seen this behavior in woodchucks before, but apparently this fairly young woodchuck was hiding in this tree to avoid some large bird of prey which had been circling the field in which we were walking to see the mounds. I swapped vehicles with Rich and Ann Pruden--they accompanied Hope and the kids to their house in Whitmore Lake, Michigan, while I continued onward in their car to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for a meeting. Below is the sweeping architecture of the huge convention center I was in, surrounded by the skyscrapers of downtown Pittsburgh:

I was there for the Ecological Society of America meeting. Meanwhile, Hope and the kids were enjoying some time in Michigan, including regular hose soakings:

and some visits with other family:

After a little less than a week, I, too, drove to Michigan, and gave Rich a few pointers on pitching horseshoes:

My stay in Michigan was brief--I arrived Thursday afternoon, and by Friday morning I had boarded a plane at Detroit Metro Airport bound for Sundsvall, Sweden. I had one stop along the way--Newark, New Jersey's international airport, from which you have a pretty good view of the New York City skyline:

The tall, pointy building on the left is the Empire State Building. I also got to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on our landing approach, but couldn't get a picture from my vantage point. It was about an 8 hour flight from Newark to Stockholm, Sweden, and then I had to catch a bus from the airport to a train station in downtown Stockholm so I could get to Sundsvall, which is about 3 hours via high-speed electric train north of Stockholm. Below are some familiar landmarks in a foreign capitol--a 7-Eleven store (bottom floor, center) and a Subway (barely visible on left side of picture):

Sundsvall is a coastal city with a large port and easy access to the forests of central Sweden, so not surprisingly it developed as a major boat building and sawmilling center in the mid- to late-1800s. The wooden city structures that arose during this period largely burned up in a catastrophic fire during the 1880s, and most were replaced with brick and stone buildings following that calamity. The hotel I stayed in was one such building:

You can't really read the neon signs on front, but the hotel's name is the "Hotel Baltic" (top sign) and it is a Best Western hotel (bottom sign). I had a cozy (read: small) room on the first floor, which was adequate for my needs. I spent my first evening in Sundsvall walking around, taking pictures, and trying to stay awake so I could try to shake the jet lag easier. Below is a picture of some more of the architecture that appeared following the bad fire in the 1880s:

I'll explain the colorful dragon in the foreground later... I was in Sundsvall to attend a meeting on primeval forests at Mid-Sweden University:

The exterior design of this Swedish university is different than I'm used to--the buildings are closely packed and interconnected, most likely to keep students and teachers warm and sheltered from the long winters they have. Another prominent landmark in this city of about 50,000 persons is the large church seen below:

Note the flying buttresses that helped to provide a large interior space for the congregation. Okay, here's another dragon:

I believe this one is sponsored by a veterinary clinic. These dragons are similar to the painted cows found around Madison and the colorful pigs around Little Rock--they are "symbols" that local persons or businesses can sponsor to paint up to various themes...I guess they're intended to bring some flair to these cities... Sundsvall didn't really need much flair, as its impressive buildings and fountains would suggest:

My meeting started on a Monday, and on Wednesday most meeting participants attended one of a half-dozen (or so) field trips. I went on one with the Swedish Forest Agency, which is roughly analogous to the US Forest Service. One thing you learn quickly--the Swedes are serious about their mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks. Here, they have hauled a table and benches into the woods so we could have our beverages and small sandwiches in style:

We were guided by some staff of the Swedish Forest Agency, and our first stop focused on their cultural resource protection (archeological work), in this case a historic homestead that was abandoned in the 1950s or 1960s:

There's not much to see in the picture above because all it was was a small field cleared of large rocks for a small garden plot. The rocky soils, understory vegetation, and trees were very similar to what we have in the northern Great Lakes, so I guess it wasn't a big surprise that many of the Scandinavians that emigrated to Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin stayed. Below is a scenic overlook along a river we had followed inland from Sundsvall:

From the same vantage point, you could see a picturesque little village, with its tall, gleaming white church steeple:

We ate lunch in a small restaurant perched on top of this overlook, which was full of intricate and carefully made furnishings, including the tables and chairs we used:

I was also intrigued by the following pair of shoes:

These were made out of woven birch bark (they have a birch very similar to the paper birch of North America). Many years ago, locals made shoes from bark because it was a cheap and readily available resource. Nowadays, they are made as a local craft to sell to tourists. As I mentioned earlier, the spruce, pine, birch, and aspen forests of this part of Sweden are very similar to those I grew up with in Wisconsin and upper Michigan:

This area was also glaciated at the same time northern Wisconsin was, so there are plenty of small lakes and other wetlands. The picture below is actually of a small reservoir, but it is identical in appearance to many of the local lakes:

Our last formal tour stop of the day was along a small trout stream to observe some freshwater mussels:

The device I am using helps you to see under the flowing surface water. These mussels are endangered species because they had been heavily exploited for freshwater pearls many decades before, and are found only in clear, cool trout streams because they depend on the trout for part of their reproductive cycle. As we returned via bus to Sundsvall, I was able to take a picture of these 5th or 6th century AD burial mounds located on the edge of town:

I had a very interesting time at this meeting in Sundsvall. The meeting wrapped up on Friday, and I returned to a hotel on the airport near Stockholm so it would be easy to catch my flight back to the US the next morning. It was interesting leaving Stockholm in the morning and getting back into Detroit by late in the same afternoon. I coordinated my travel plans and talked with Hope and the kids daily via Skype (video calls over the internet), which worked surprisingly well. So, I got to hear the events that went on during the week I was gone, including the finding of a small turtle while picking Michigan blueberries (it is in Beth's hands):

I also got to wish Stephen a happy 3rd birthday, which he celebrated while I was in Sweden:

I arrived safely (as did my luggage) late Saturday afternoon. We spent Sunday with Hope's parents, and left Monday morning for Arkansas. We couldn't linger because Kenny and Beth started school this week. On the way down, we stopped at a famous landmark in the bootheel of southeastern Missouri--Lambert's Cafe, home of the "throwed" rolls. In this restaurant, they will throw their fresh baked dinner rolls at you, sometimes from 50 feet away. Lots of good home cookin' food, hence my bloated expression after finishing:

We arrived safely back to the heat and humidity of Arkansas on Tuesday afternoon, just in time to attend Kenny's 3rd grade orientation that evening. Today (Thursday) was their first day of school, as an excited Kenny and Beth showed this morning:

Beth was all about starting kindergarten, but Kenny seemed a bit more reserved--nervous, I suppose, about starting at a new school location (grades 3-5 are in the intermediate school a couple blocks from his elementary school). Both seemed to do well today, so hopefully that will bode well for the rest of the year.

Well, speaking of which, I better sign off and help get the kids to bed so they can get up for school tomorrow.