Prairie Landing
Monday, March 28, 2005
Michigan, Napa Valley of the Midwest
About a month ago, when I was tumbling around the school/work vortex and was not keeping up with blogging, we went to visit my cousin Vino in Ann Arbor. Colliculus posted some pictures. This weekend, V. returned the favor for a most delightful visit, so it seems meet to discuss the significance of Michigan.
If you live on the East Coast, you probably don't think much about Michigan, unless you're Chesapeake Explorer who grew up there. However, it occupies a weird spot in the Upper Midwest mind.
First of all, there's the hand thing. You know, where people hold their right hand palm up and draw elaborate, invisible pictures of where they're from and where they went. Unless they're from the UP, in which case it doesn't work. But nobody's from the UP. Just like nobody's from sLower Delaware.
Everyone goes on vacation in Michigan. It's got the attractions of California with the climate of Maine. You go there to go skiing. To go on a wine tour. (There are DOZENS of wineries there.) To pick your own cherries and apples and strawberries. To go on a romantic getaway. To visit some adorable, unspoiled lakefront town -- so unspoiled, in fact, that you'd never dare actually go in the water because it's so frigid even in July. To go to the beach without all the fecal coliform warnings and other ickiness associated with Lake Michigan on the Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana sides of things. Also, the sand is supposed to be softer but I don't believe that -- the sand at Chicago beaches is already unimaginably soft. It's like flannel.
So what the good people of Michigan want you to know is, if you think you need to leave the Midwest for a vacation, you're just not trying hard enough.
Vino actually brought some Michigan vino with him. I didn't try it because I'm still not supposed to drink wine. By all accounts, this was a most enviable blessing. Now there's a bottle lurking in our fridge, along with a bottle of normal wine I bought back in November when Binny's was having a sale.
If you live on the East Coast, you probably don't think much about Michigan, unless you're Chesapeake Explorer who grew up there. However, it occupies a weird spot in the Upper Midwest mind.
First of all, there's the hand thing. You know, where people hold their right hand palm up and draw elaborate, invisible pictures of where they're from and where they went. Unless they're from the UP, in which case it doesn't work. But nobody's from the UP. Just like nobody's from sLower Delaware.
Everyone goes on vacation in Michigan. It's got the attractions of California with the climate of Maine. You go there to go skiing. To go on a wine tour. (There are DOZENS of wineries there.) To pick your own cherries and apples and strawberries. To go on a romantic getaway. To visit some adorable, unspoiled lakefront town -- so unspoiled, in fact, that you'd never dare actually go in the water because it's so frigid even in July. To go to the beach without all the fecal coliform warnings and other ickiness associated with Lake Michigan on the Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana sides of things. Also, the sand is supposed to be softer but I don't believe that -- the sand at Chicago beaches is already unimaginably soft. It's like flannel.
So what the good people of Michigan want you to know is, if you think you need to leave the Midwest for a vacation, you're just not trying hard enough.
Vino actually brought some Michigan vino with him. I didn't try it because I'm still not supposed to drink wine. By all accounts, this was a most enviable blessing. Now there's a bottle lurking in our fridge, along with a bottle of normal wine I bought back in November when Binny's was having a sale.
