Road Trip with Mom: Day 3, June 27
This is a beautiful view, a vintage Oldsmobile headed to a car show in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula. So American. We were not in the UP when I snapped this shot, but passing through the Huron National forest on North Interstate 75, en route to Mackinaw City. I like to imagine that this is the very same orange Oldsmobile that Mom and I found when we happened upon a vintage car show in St. Ignace the next evening, but that's for another day.
Northern Michigan is stunning and intriguing, especially along the any body of water. The blues and greens of Lake Huron rival those of exotic vacation resorts. When I took my first, good look at the lake after arriving in Mackinaw City, I wondered why Chuck and I went to all the trouble and expense of taking a trip to Aruba in 2008. We could have just come here:
The bridge in the background above is the Mackinac Bridge, separating the Upper Peninsula from the rest of Michigan. I hear from Michiganers or Michiganders or whatever they call themselves (Trish, I'm sure you help me out here.) that people are different up there in the UP-- It's like a different country or something--but we didn't stick around long enough to make any distinctions.
I can say that the people south of the bridge were pretty damned friendly. Excepting maybe the creepy people who run the EconoLodge where we got duped into staying because it marketed its cabins in the parking lot as "The Cabins of Mackinaw." They're actually cramped cabins in the parking lot behind a Comfort Inn, also run by the people at the EconoLodge.
I don't know how that works. I do know that the cabin/parking lot guests have been issued green bracelets, like the kind you get at amusement parks, to wear when using the adjacent facilities at the neighboring Comfort Inn. It's complicated.).
Most people, however, whom we’ve met at roadside cherry stands and ferry boat ticket booths and ice creams shops have been some very friendly people.
This picture convinced Mom that unposed pictures can look really good:
I kept trying to sneak shots of her while she was walking or looking the other way, but she always caught me and posed:
She still looks good in this one, even if she was self-conscious about her injury on her right arm, which she sustained while cleaning up a small pile of rose petals on the back patio. This accident made me hyper-vigilant about preventing her from tripping, and my own clumsiness and tendency to run into things dissolved as I began to pay more attention to her in our travels.
Tonight around 5:30, as we walked back to the car after finishing off more iced cream and gazing out over Lake Huron, Mom said, “I’m sick of traveling.” I got a little worried. We were only three days in.
She then backtracked and said, “I’m not sick of traveling; I’m just weary of traveling.” There’s a big difference there in the word choice. I’m not sick of traveling, either, but I understand the “weary” part. We’ve spent a lot of time in the car since Monday, over 800 miles of time, engaging in unstructured activities and arriving everywhere later than planned. We meant to get to Mackinaw City a lot earlier and do a lot more than we actually did-look out over Lake Huron at the island in the distance, eat some lunch, walk around, eat some ice cream. But after the ice cream, we were road-weary and didn't care anymore. I took her back to our lush, cabin-on-the-lake in the parking lot behind the Comfort Inn, and I took a long walk to work off the bad food and to clear my head. Back home, I'm used to taking at least one walk a day. Sometimes, it's the only time I have to be alone. And I needed that alone time.
I ended up walking the entire circumference of downtown Mackinaw City, and I took this shot along the way:
By the time I returned, rejuvenated and full of stories about my discoveries, she was in her bathrobe. I walked into our cabin at 7:45 full of proposals-the outdoor mall that we hadn’t noticed earlier, a lighthouse just a short drive away-but it was just too late for new stuff. Live and learn.
She and I are looking forward to our Mackinac Island tour tomorrow. It’s structured. We have an agenda that was scheduled for us in advance, and all we need to do is show up. That’ll be nice. For as much as the both of us have given lip service to the freedoms of the unplanned journey, that kind of travel can be taxing. We are both, I am learning, people who cannot handle nebulous plans for very long. Chuck used to be a fan of the nebulous plan until we realized that too much drifting can cost precious time and more stress than making a few commitments in advance. I will try to bring more structure and organization to the remainder of our trip. I’m a teacher, I should be able to do this. Should be.
I don’t know what Mom’s goals were for this trip, but I had some vague plan, among others, to learn something about myself by learning more about Mom. And I’m learning plenty: we both like structure but say we don’t; we both like to predict the worst case scenario before anything alarming really happens, we both trip a lot.
On a brighter note, Mom likes The Grateful Dead. We've been tuned to The Grateful Dead channel ever since we entered Michigan yesterday afternoon. I think the long jams without interruption are soothing on these long, scenic drives.
On a darker note, because I’m in Northern Michigan I’ve had that horrid Kid Rock song on repeat in my head all day long. Even now, I’m singing those inane lyrics against my will:
“Drinkin’ whiskey from the bottle, not thinkin’ ‘bout tomorrow, singin’ “Sweet Home Alabama” all summer long…” What the hell does “Sweet Home Alabama” have to do with a song about a great summer spent in Northern Michigan? And why is the melody for “Sweet Home Alabama” awkwardly drifting through this wretched song the entire time? If I were a teacher in the School of Rock, I would fail this song for a number of reasons: it lacks originality to point where it just sounds like a mash-up of “Sweet Home Alabama” and a teenager strumming his guitar in the garage; the rhyme and the rhythm is all over the place (at one point, he even rhymes the same word); and the lyrics are fucking stupid. They don’t make sense. And just because he happens to be singing about Northern Michigan (and getting laid and drinking whiskey and singing “Sweet Home Alabama” all summer long), and just because I happen to be in Northern Michigan, I am plagued with this song.
I can’t wait to get to Ohio. The Pretenders are so much better that Kid Rock.
Northern Michigan is stunning and intriguing, especially along the any body of water. The blues and greens of Lake Huron rival those of exotic vacation resorts. When I took my first, good look at the lake after arriving in Mackinaw City, I wondered why Chuck and I went to all the trouble and expense of taking a trip to Aruba in 2008. We could have just come here:
The bridge in the background above is the Mackinac Bridge, separating the Upper Peninsula from the rest of Michigan. I hear from Michiganers or Michiganders or whatever they call themselves (Trish, I'm sure you help me out here.) that people are different up there in the UP-- It's like a different country or something--but we didn't stick around long enough to make any distinctions.
I can say that the people south of the bridge were pretty damned friendly. Excepting maybe the creepy people who run the EconoLodge where we got duped into staying because it marketed its cabins in the parking lot as "The Cabins of Mackinaw." They're actually cramped cabins in the parking lot behind a Comfort Inn, also run by the people at the EconoLodge.
I don't know how that works. I do know that the cabin/parking lot guests have been issued green bracelets, like the kind you get at amusement parks, to wear when using the adjacent facilities at the neighboring Comfort Inn. It's complicated.).
Most people, however, whom we’ve met at roadside cherry stands and ferry boat ticket booths and ice creams shops have been some very friendly people.
This picture convinced Mom that unposed pictures can look really good:
I kept trying to sneak shots of her while she was walking or looking the other way, but she always caught me and posed:
She still looks good in this one, even if she was self-conscious about her injury on her right arm, which she sustained while cleaning up a small pile of rose petals on the back patio. This accident made me hyper-vigilant about preventing her from tripping, and my own clumsiness and tendency to run into things dissolved as I began to pay more attention to her in our travels.
Tonight around 5:30, as we walked back to the car after finishing off more iced cream and gazing out over Lake Huron, Mom said, “I’m sick of traveling.” I got a little worried. We were only three days in.
She then backtracked and said, “I’m not sick of traveling; I’m just weary of traveling.” There’s a big difference there in the word choice. I’m not sick of traveling, either, but I understand the “weary” part. We’ve spent a lot of time in the car since Monday, over 800 miles of time, engaging in unstructured activities and arriving everywhere later than planned. We meant to get to Mackinaw City a lot earlier and do a lot more than we actually did-look out over Lake Huron at the island in the distance, eat some lunch, walk around, eat some ice cream. But after the ice cream, we were road-weary and didn't care anymore. I took her back to our lush, cabin-on-the-lake in the parking lot behind the Comfort Inn, and I took a long walk to work off the bad food and to clear my head. Back home, I'm used to taking at least one walk a day. Sometimes, it's the only time I have to be alone. And I needed that alone time.
I ended up walking the entire circumference of downtown Mackinaw City, and I took this shot along the way:
By the time I returned, rejuvenated and full of stories about my discoveries, she was in her bathrobe. I walked into our cabin at 7:45 full of proposals-the outdoor mall that we hadn’t noticed earlier, a lighthouse just a short drive away-but it was just too late for new stuff. Live and learn.
She and I are looking forward to our Mackinac Island tour tomorrow. It’s structured. We have an agenda that was scheduled for us in advance, and all we need to do is show up. That’ll be nice. For as much as the both of us have given lip service to the freedoms of the unplanned journey, that kind of travel can be taxing. We are both, I am learning, people who cannot handle nebulous plans for very long. Chuck used to be a fan of the nebulous plan until we realized that too much drifting can cost precious time and more stress than making a few commitments in advance. I will try to bring more structure and organization to the remainder of our trip. I’m a teacher, I should be able to do this. Should be.
I don’t know what Mom’s goals were for this trip, but I had some vague plan, among others, to learn something about myself by learning more about Mom. And I’m learning plenty: we both like structure but say we don’t; we both like to predict the worst case scenario before anything alarming really happens, we both trip a lot.
On a brighter note, Mom likes The Grateful Dead. We've been tuned to The Grateful Dead channel ever since we entered Michigan yesterday afternoon. I think the long jams without interruption are soothing on these long, scenic drives.
On a darker note, because I’m in Northern Michigan I’ve had that horrid Kid Rock song on repeat in my head all day long. Even now, I’m singing those inane lyrics against my will:
“Drinkin’ whiskey from the bottle, not thinkin’ ‘bout tomorrow, singin’ “Sweet Home Alabama” all summer long…” What the hell does “Sweet Home Alabama” have to do with a song about a great summer spent in Northern Michigan? And why is the melody for “Sweet Home Alabama” awkwardly drifting through this wretched song the entire time? If I were a teacher in the School of Rock, I would fail this song for a number of reasons: it lacks originality to point where it just sounds like a mash-up of “Sweet Home Alabama” and a teenager strumming his guitar in the garage; the rhyme and the rhythm is all over the place (at one point, he even rhymes the same word); and the lyrics are fucking stupid. They don’t make sense. And just because he happens to be singing about Northern Michigan (and getting laid and drinking whiskey and singing “Sweet Home Alabama” all summer long), and just because I happen to be in Northern Michigan, I am plagued with this song.
I can’t wait to get to Ohio. The Pretenders are so much better that Kid Rock.