Model Reality

I just returned from a trip to Ithaca (recruiting at Cornell). We flew into Syracuse via Chicago. On the way into O’Hare on the first leg of the trip, we wheeled around over the lake for an easterly approach and I saw something I’ve never seen: expansive ice floes in clogging up the lake. I summarized it to friend in an email thusly:

Travel has ways of opening up new dimensions, perspectives. Some enabled by humans, some enabled by technology. I’m sitting in O’Hare (my first and home airport) waiting for a delayed flight to Syracuse. The Midwest is iced over, Iowa a white dream of sparkling hills punctuated by meandering streams and the brown texture of small groves of trees looking like oasises amidst the white desert.

We came in on the eastern approach. In order to do this, we had to fly over the northern suburbs and pinwheel back around, low, over the lake. The lake is partially frozen with waves lapping at the shores while huge ice floes sit stoically surrounded by undulating waves.

Lake Michigan was the first body of water in my life. I grew up 4 blocks away from it. I’ve seen ice from the shore in the dead of winter. But today, seeing it from the air, was a whole new experience. It was beautiful.

Coming over the houses and neighborhoods of the North Shore, I was reminded of the rugged and classic beauty that it Chicago.

Unfortunately, my camera was up in the overhead bin and there was no way to grab it while strapped in for landing. But on the way back, I was prepared. I snapped a lot of shots and stuck the best ones (still not really well culled, I just pulled the really bad ones) in this gallery.

The Michigan shore of Lake Michigan, covered by scattered clouds. Note the band of ice leading out from shore. Oddly, it was exactly the opposite on the Illinois shore: ice floes choked the open water but there was liquid for a few hundred yards from the beach out.

Illinois shore of the lake. The promontory on the shore is next to the Baha’i Temple in Wilmette.

The texture of some of these floes is amazing. It looks like solid land.

Extreme zoom shot reveals the surreal and abstract texture of the ice.

Kibbutz Urim, where I spent seven months in ‘94-’95. KMZ file here.

I spent Thanksgiving with some neat folks up at Convict Lake. I threw up some pictures.

These are the first pictures I’ve posted with my new camera, a Panasonic DMC-TZ1. I’m really happy with the lens quality (it’s Leica glass) and the wide-angle shots are beautiful. Things get a little weird in low-light/high-ISO, but such is life.