the hamptons of the meridian

today tyler and i spent most of our day at Michigan State University in Okemos, MI. we made sara lunch, and she showed us how all of the medicine companies provide each social club with ice cream, pizza and/or soda. we went to their natural science museum and scheduled to participate in their "pathology rounds" at the diagnostic center for population and animal health.

what makes MSU a unique school to study veterinary medicine is their lab that attracts both ordinary and rare strange cases for pathologies. so say you just bought two steers, like this one farmer did in virginia a week ago, to bring back to his home in ohio. but on the road they die of what seems like sudden death. he instead drives the carcasses to MSU where they dissect and diagnosis- it turned out it was BVD (Bovine Virus Diarrhea) which includes anomalies like hemorrhages along the surface of muscles or organs. THAT IS WHAT WE SAW!!! open, dissected, red, smelly, raw blood flesh of animals- your favorite dog, to calf, to be steer to something else!! we saw a swollen cow leg, a liver w BVD showing strange plaque like growth, a tiger-striped colon of a steer, etc etc. it was soooooooo cool.

what a cool day we had wearing white coats everywhere. he looked more professional, and i looked like a kid playing dress up (it was so big). tyler sleeps on the couch now w a silk blanket.

we've been doing some research for our upper peninsula trip of michigan. we are stoked on the picture rocks national lakeshore- we can't wait to see miner's castle!! we met this old hippy of a guy named mike to give us the lowdown on the place- what to see, where to go- it's so sad we don't have more time.

made rice and beans for the road- time to catch the z's.