Up in Duluth

Marz went up to Duluth yesterday, to sign her apartment lease.
bink & I went with her, and while Marz went to a transfer-student meeting at the U after, we went hiking in nearby Hartley Park--picking up a loop of the Superior Hiking Trail. This is one of my favorite places.

Below, I'm pointing toward Lake Superior in the distance. You could keep hiking for 300 more trail miles along the North Shore...

Due to last-minuteness, Marz ended up with a huge apartment, paying more rent than she wanted, but the windows look onto Lake Superior, just down the hill.

A couple miles up the steep hill is the university, and a block away is the co-op where she'll be working--she just got hired this week. 

Her apartment's in an old brick building, not gentrified by/for Californian climate refugees (not yet). The laundry room is in the old stables underneath--you have to go outside and enter through stable doors! A bit inconvenient in winter...

Shabby-chic, it has the most amazing radiators--below, in the bathroom. Don't they look like cathedral windows?

A shop below her apartment sells used outdoor gear––hiking, biking, kayaking–– and at the corner, a place serves Philly cheesesteak and adult (alcoholic) ice-cream floats. I didn't see toffee ice-cream in Guiness though.

The U starts Monday, and Marz'll make a couple more trips with her stuff in her little car--her bike alone will take up half the available space.
A different friend is going with her today, but Sunday will be a one-way drive...

This morning she said, "I'm not going."

I feel for her. She's making enormous changes at the last minute, and to some extent all this is based on an idea, FREE TUITION, not on a deep desire.
But that's what eighteen-year-olds do, right? Head off to college because it's the Next Thing to Do, not because they have a driving need to get educated. Not that Marz is eighteen! I mean, it's a passage in American life--leaving home to go to college, and she's never done that...

I said, "You can always come back". That's true, and Marz has returned from adventures before, but she's more locked in than before, with classes set for the coming semester--plus, she signed a one-year lease.

Once again I get a mommish experience--the empty nest.
Marz has lived with me off and on in the thirteen years since she moved here (from Oregon), after Camino 2011. Mostly off in recent years, but on again this summer or I wouldn’t feel such a tug.

When she leaves, I'll move my bed back into the bedroom and set up a better printmaking area in the living room. I'll reserve a table JUST for inking and printing, because I keep making a mess doing everything on one crowded table. Tiny bits of carved linoleum get in the ink...

Besides working on little stories, I want a production project--something I can do without much thinking (assuming my brain will be tired from working). Marz suggested a poster of 49 images of Little Brother--the small bear who got locked in the basement--each image in 3 different colors. This would be a good jigsaw style printing project.

I found a Community Ed class I might take: Exploring Home Printmaking. They don't say what kind of printmaking, but I'd be open to trying most any kind you can do at home.
Five Thursdays starting late October (dark! cold!), only $55 ($300 less than the summer class I took at the professional print studio).

So I’m good to go.