Tuesday, 7/27

 My week of being a geek is now over. Pop the cork on the champagne if you’ve been chilling a bottle.

First of all, I had a great day off, thanks for asking. Because yesterday was actually the sunniest day of the three day weekend I took full advantage of it, and found myself at the end of the day actually wishing that every day could be like Monday.

And that’s not a phrase you often hear people using.

One of the zillion things I did was to review my week of being a geek--i.e. counting the number of different state license plates I saw in Marquette the previous week. As you know I’ve been doing this for (gasp) almost twenty years now, and if nothing else it always provides an interesting snapshot into the kinds of people who visit this place. Normally, I’ve done it during Art on the Rocks weekend. However, for the second year in a row there was no Art on the Rocks, so any kind of year-to-year comparison isn’t statistically valid.

I mean, I’m pretty sure that no one aside from me cares about that, but still--any year-to-year comparison isn’t statistically valid.

So with that in mind here’s what I saw last week--plates from 40 different US states other than Michigan (well, actually, 39 states and the District of Columbia, but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms). Once again, with the proviso that year-to-year comparisons aren’t statistically valid, that’s a lot more than I saw last year, just as we were coming out of the first wave of Covid, and within a few states of what I normally see during an Art on the Rocks years.

So all in all, not too bad for Marquette’s tourism industry.

There was one kind of big surprise in the numbers. As always, I saw of TON of Illinois and Wisconsin plates, and this year there was a rather large number from Minnesota, as well. I have to laugh when I see that happen; after all, aren’t Michigan and Minnesota pretty much the same state. Isn’t that pretty much like living in Negaunee and then deciding to take your summer vacation in Ishpeming?

That wasn’t the surprise, though. That was in the state I seemed to have noticed more than any other, aside from the big three. That state? Texas. I didn't keep track of how many plates I saw from the Lone Star State, but I know it was in the double digits. I don’t know if it was people escaping the heat of Texas, the strange political climate there, or if Marquette was just featured in a newspaper article or blog post in Dallas or Houston. But everywhere I went I saw a bunch of white Texas license plates.

Who knew?

So the week of having my head on a swivel, trying to look at every last license plate on every last car I walk past, is now over. I don’t know we can take away from the week, other than the fact that Marquette is rapidly becoming one of the prime tourist destinations in the US. Oh, and than I’m a geek. But we already knew that, right?

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)