The Great Lakes State

I couldn’t figure out which was more important right now: to report on my trip to Michigan, or write a little about my life here. I decided to start with a summary of my most recent vacation, but this is a long report, so I’ll break it up over the next few days.

It all started in an airport. Airports are so full of people! Single people, groups of people, families traveling together. There are tall skinnies, short skinnies, round folk, attractive and not-so-attractive people. And we’re all trying to get somewhere on business or for pleasure. Or both. I wonder myself what we’re all up to. I like to follow my fellow travelers in my imagination to their anticipated rendezvous, the business meeting in Philadelphia, the Vegetarians of America conference in Madison, or the grandchildren waiting in Trenton. Let’s not forget, then, the airport staff. I wonder what they think from day to day. Do they look at us and wonder where we’re off to? Do they follow us in their imaginations to our exotic destinations of San Francisco, DC, or Columbus? Or do they just get annoyed that we leave the tables a mess, put our feet up on the pleather chairs, and try to groom ourselves in the miniscule automatic bathroom sinks? And airports are so full of possibility! You can get there from here! The boarding gate is the gateway to anywhere! I think about that as I consider my future traveling. Hopefully this fall I’ll be flying to Spain and then, who knows? I’m thinking of picking up and checking out. If I can screw up my courage enough, I’ll buy a one-way ticket and a guidebook, and hit the road. Anytime I travel, by plane or train, and sometimes by car, I get that same excitement that anything could happen. I could begin with the intention of going to Pennsylvania, or St. Helena, or Detroit, and wind up in Malaysia! Ok, maybe not by train. But the point is made. I wonder what it would take to live on stand-by, to put my life at the mercy of the open seat. Who would I meet? Would I have fun? How much could I see? Where could I make it to on a shoestring budget? How much of that shoestring should I tie up in the security of hotel reservations and an itinerary? I could survive by my wits, I think. At least until my savings runs out! And then? And then I get a job? And then I charge a ticket home? And then I sleep under the stars, busking for food? I try to consider how much discomfort I could live with in the face of seeing the world on my own terms.

I met my friend Amanda at the Detroit airport late, and the next morning we went to Traverse City and the cabin “up North.” We started the day with breakfast at The French Laundry, a fantastic little bistro in Fenton, near Amanda’s parents’ place. It was spacious, with mismatched tables and chairs in the dining room with the bar. The walls were decorated with old advertisements painted billboard-style, and gerbera daisies in brown- and green-glassed bottles graced every table. I ordered the Raspberry Beret, a sandwich of smoked ham, Swiss Gruyere cheese, and raspberry preserves, on toasted semolina bread with peach nectar to drink. It was one of the most delicious breakfast sandwiches I’ve ever had!

Later that day, we arrived at Uncle Tom’s Cabin (no joke) after nearly running out of gas and giving ourselves up for lost on the frighteningly desolate roads. Luckily, we found both a gas station and the cabin, but not before speculating on just how many ways we could be murdered and nobody would know. The rest of the afternoon was pretty slow, with a short walk to the river, and then a drive into nearby Kalkaska and Traverse City. We wandered around the town, spending most of our time in a bookstore and walking along the shore of Lake Michigan at Traverse Bay. We had dinner that evening at the picnic table outside the
cabin and amused ourselves by imagining being murdered by the hillbilly neighbors who have a deer head suspended from a tree at the end of the driveway. It seemed that a good deal of the talk that day had to do with our violent deaths at the hands of the Northerners….