Monday, October 6, 2008

The LP

Thursday night we were in Detroit, having extended our stay to two nights so we could watch the debate in the comfort of our hotel, with room service. We got a sixer of Bell's and a New York Times from the grocery store down the street, and ordered room service. [Oh yeah, and Sarah Palin is still a liar and a manipulator and a puppet of the GOP as much as she is a climber…among other things. I think Biden did pretty well. He didn't hit it out of the park—I didn't like it when he'd smile at her while she recited her talking points—but overall he seemed very real and explained the platform well. I'd say Biden's best moment was his frank explanation of McCain's health care plan. It looks like that's shaping up to be the issue the campaign will hammer home in these last four weeks, as it's important to older and/or Floridian voters, and is also a way to discuss the economy without sounding all gloom-and-doom.]

But enought about all that. By the same time the following day we were long gone, having cruised in a northwesterly direction toward Lake Michigan at the top of the Lower Peninsula. They call that the LP, and the Upper Peninsula is the UP.

We spent the night (the cold, cold night—it is October, we keep forgetting) at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and had an entire loop of the campground to ourselves.

You can't tell from the photo but Emily is wearing about nine layers. It was really, really cold—we even had a bit of lake-effect snow in the middle of the night.

The next morning we walked out to the Lake.

Michigan is a beautiful state—I don't think it quite makes my top ten but it is pretty in a subtle way.
This theater in a town near the campground was showing It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Huh. Kind of a cool house, but a little too out-of-place, even for me. I would like it more if it was surrounded by trees, but it was just sitting on a hill above the road and a bunch of farmland. This is why people get mad at modern architecture.

I like this guy's bumper stickers: a Dale Earnhardt memorial, an Army Ranger emblem, plus "Do I Look Like a Fucking People Person" and "Doing My Part to Piss Off the Religious Right."

We took the long way and eventually crossed the Mackinaw Bridge to the UP. It feels like we have left the East now.

1 comment:

Dottie said...

oops - looks like you would have had to take a right up there.

great pics of detroit. in addition to detroit, the entire state of michigan is suffering through tough times, job loss & the slowing economy. when i left college at western (wmu), the stats were that 88% of michigan's college grads take employment out of the state. craziness.