Driving At Night

We left the small town of Rogers City not long before 2am. We’d been told that there was one really nice motel in town we could stay at, but we’d also been told that there was one nice place to eat… and it was anything but. Not much is open there, of course, it being winter and tourist traffic being at the very lowest ebb; walking into that nice place to eat was an exercise in public examination.

So we left, to head back to Gaylord, about an hour away and the site of a number of nice hotels. Of course, it has snowed quite a bit the last couple of days, so all of Northern Michigan is choked with outdoors types, here to ski and snowmobile and whatnot, and we had not reserved a room or checked in before going on to Rogers City.

But it really didn’t matter.

Gaylord, as far as it is from what we’re used to in the Detroit or Grand Rapids metro areas, seemed like an oasis of civilization compared to where we had been. Not that Rogers City did not have its own charm, but part of that charm meant there was no where to go buy some pop or bottled water at 11pm.

So we made the drive, almost seventy miles, after 1:30am. The roads which had been dry on the drive up seemed a little dicier in the dark, with a light snow falling all around. They seemed a little more treacherous in the dark, with essentially only our two vehicles on the road. And it only seemed to get more uncertain the closer we got to Gaylord; I know too well how quickly driving conditions can change, and so even as I ticked off the miles to our destination, I didn’t grow that much more confident.

Until I could see the glow of city lights over the tiny oasis, hovering over the trees the way a UFO might. That was still almost ten miles away, but at that point I knew I’d be able to see a drastic change in the weather coming between us and our destination.

By virtue of my writing this, you know I got where I wanted to go. The hotel had two rooms for us–each with two beds, even, so no one would have to double up. Nothing was open for us to eat at, of course, we’re not quite that close to civilized, round-the-clock urban life, but we’re settled in and warm and safely off the road for another night. And really, that’s all we were looking for.

Okay, I’m going to sleep now.

Crossposted with klech.net

My Beloved Corps

The Marines have been told that they are unwelcome in Berkeley, CA, by the city council. My response, as I mentioned in Janiece Murphy’s excellent post-and-comment thread on the topic is: Meh.

What can you expect out of this city, really?

I mean, I’m all for self-expression. I’m all for dissent. But seriously?

If you follow my link to Janiece’s entry, you’ll also see Jim Wright’s excellent comments on the situation. I would love to see them follow through on this particular train of thought and ban all the US automakers for the same thing. And let’s not stop there. How many of them, I wonder, drive Saabs, made by a Swedish fighter plane manufacturer? Or Volkswagens? I wonder what would happen if you avoided everything made by someone who supplied the Defense Department, or the CIA, or whatever.

A civics lesson in the interconnectedness of all things, along with a nice demonstration of how some folks like to go after high profile targets to no discernible effect, other than pissing a lot of people off.

Crossposted with klech.net