Michigan (Adam)

I just found a wifi link outside a Burger King after we just had dinner at a Ponderosa Steakhouse (it was GROSS). There is not a lot of stuff in Michigan. And you know what there is NONE of in Michigan? Non-American cars. Seriously--except for our Toyota rental, which we are lucky nobody keyed while we were eating dinner.

We have to go, but remind me to talk later about our talking GPS--it's a Magellan who talks in a female voice, so we call her Madge. Anyway. Earlier in the day, while we were still in Ontario, I wrote some stuff in Word for later publication. That later is NOW:

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We're in Canada. Everything is different here.

I keep saying that to the kids to try to be funny. Actually the main difference is that signs are in both English and French, and distances are in kilometers. I mean kilometres. I haven’t even laid eyes on Canadian money yet, because you can use your bank card everywhere, like in the States.

So I’m typing this in the car for posting later—mainly because, like most people nowadays (except my mom), I can’t feel like I’m alive unless I’m engaged with some kind of media. Screw the Canadian countryside.

I gather Bethany posted last night, but I haven’t read it yet. I also understand she’s guilty of drinking and blogging, so I’ll be interested to see how that came out. She may have mentioned that Niagara Falls, Ontario is dreadful. The falls themselves are smashing, of course—they say that, in addition to all the people who have gone over them in a barrel—starting with a 63-year-old woman schoolteacher in the late 19th century—in 1960, a 7-year-old boy was swept over them wearing nothing but a life jacket and a swim suit, and he lived. That’s amazing. (They of course no longer allow the barrel thing.) But anyway, the town itself is tourist hell—

casino, Hard Rock Café, Planet Hollywood, all that mess. Actually there was a Guinness World Records Museum, which might have been cool to visit, but this is a whirlwind tour we’re on.

So we’re driving through the Canadian countryside because it’s much faster to go over Lake Erie to the north than cut back into the States and go around the south. We come into Michigan not far from Detroit. From there we’re heading due north to the tippy-top of the mitten—right between the mitten and the Upper Peninsula, actually—to visit Mackinaw Island. The reason we’re visiting Mackinaw Island is that it’s a historic site of some sort, and the CEO of Historic New England (Bethany’s employer) used to run it, and recommended it, and so we have to go there or Bethany will be fired. Actually we’re just going there.

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Okay--Madge says we have to go now.