To Standish, MI
In San Francisco you learn to love the fog. Intimacy reveals its subtleties. You can choose to revel in those things you love about the inevitable while being prepared to endure the worst. I suppose the fog I have been experiencing in the Midwest is similar. This morning's fog was dense, wispy, hovering and a saturated blancmange all at various times. The air brilliantly clear and crisp at others. In the early stages of the sunrise, the fog was floating in a tenuous membrane 40 feet above the ground. When the light of the rising sun touched it, The gossamar veil lit up in a blazing neon china-red. The intensity of the color varied with the density of the fog. No longer was I driving, I was flying at 30,000 feet between two strata of clouds. Dark gray below day-glow bright above. I was tempted to climb onto the hood of my truck and shout out "I'm on top of the world!" but I would have had to take my foot from the accelerator and the effect of flying wouldn't have been the same after the truck slowed down.
I experienced so many varieties of inland fog today I feel I am almost a connoisseur. I took a break to eat and still ran into fog for another two hours. But you learn to love these things... Perhaps I will learn to take good pictures of fog. I haven't yet. All tips are welcome.
I went off map a few times today. Michigan has "seasonal roads." The ones I traversed today were sandy, two-lane ruts. I was about a mile down one of these seasonal roads that I hoping would end up someplace specific when a few great plops of rain landed on my windshield. I had stopped to record some of the ambient noises and had the tappity-tapping of rain on leaves. I considered the unknown length and destination of the road ahead and the sandy dirt behind me that could turn into dense, slick muck--just add water--Hmmm perhaps I should turn around and go back. I did. The rain never showed in full force but, as they say: "Caution is the better part of valor." Once again, for want of a good map.
But that leaves another point. If I had a good (Delorme) map how might things be different? I might certainly be traveling less cluelessly on weirder roads, but there is a certain thrill when traveling on gut instinct with only the vaguest idea of where some road might lead. Go ahead, try it. Now keep in mind you are driving on roads, obviously someone else has been there before, right? Try going for two hours on back roads, in some part of the country where you are completely unfamiliar with the terrain and road layout. Now imagine all of the roads gone. Your vehicle as well. Imagine at this point the pure adventure and the amazing grit it took to be a Lewis & Clark. They crossed the continent with no maps. No roads. No air conditioning. No comfy hotels at the end of the day. That would be kinda fun... even if everybody was smelling pretty gamey after a few months.
Michigan has the honors of being the first state where I have seen porcupines as road kill. Perhaps I should start another table in the database that tracks road kill. What specie seen in what State. The saddest road kill is the dog. When I see a dog by the side of a highway I get pissed at the owner. I have heard that 90% of the dogs you see at the side of the road died from owner negligence. Most often they were bounced or dislodged from the back of a pickup. That is sad, very sad. If you want to have your dog in the bed of your pickup, make sure they are tied in a way where they can sandblast their nose but can't get bounced out. There was a fawn in the road kill list today too... earlier in the morning, I saw one safely jumping across the road, almost completely out of its spots. The dead one was only a week or so younger.
I drove Eastward and crossed Michigan to Lake Huron, ending the drive in Standish, Michigan. Standish is situated on one of the byways that leads to the interstate. Right in the middle of town is a traffic light. North of the traffic light were miles and miles of trucks and campers and boats in trailers all queued up waiting for the light to turn green so 50 of them at a time could continue on South to Detroit or wherever they were headed. They have had their Labor Day fun, now they must fight the traffic home. The funny thing is I went three or four miles North of Standish and had to come back South. I certainly didn't want to join in the folly of those patient vacationers. Even using the poor map that I had with me, I knew there was a small highway about two miles to the east. I dodged over and there was almost no one on it. The people who were, sped along at 60 mph. In no time I had overshot Standish and was able to toodle my way back up to it again!