A Trip North for the 4th

It was a long weekend but as always worth the trip. Joel, Dela and I drove North to the farm/lake last Thursday and spent a long weekend visiting with aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, grandparents and great-grandparents. Adeline did great. She was tired by the end and she is still catching up on sleep but we couldn't ask for a better baby.

As always when we head back to Michigan we are reminded of all the wonderful things that wait for us in "pure" Michigan and the reasons why, though Cleveland has a lot to offer, we feel the need to raise Dela there. Of course there is the "proximity to family" but beyond that there are a few less tangible reasons. Here are two, I have many...

The sunrise. When we stay at the farm, one of the things that I notice is the sunrise. It sounds silly and even a little cliche but it took me 4 years of living in the city to realize that I had missed over a thousand sunrises. Not that the sun doesn't rise in Ohio (though some maize and blue fans may suggest it) but it is obscured by row after row of house after house, building after building and instead you wake with the sense that the sun is up or perhaps, if you are lucky and travel East in the morning, you may steal a glimpse of it rising over buildings, a 5 lane road paving the way. I have sorely missed the moment that, looking out to the East, you can see the sun rise over the horizon obscured by nothing but the arc of the earth. At sunset in Cleveland you never get to see the shadow of a tree stretch on for what seems like an infinity before disappearing altogether into the shade. In the same way are lost the moonrise and the moonset.

The stars. I can count the stars in the city and within 40 miles of it. In Northern Michigan on a clear night there are more stars than dark sky. You can barely make out the constellations not because they are dim but because all the stars in between are so bright. You can see the Milky Way and sometimes the Northern lights. I want Dela to grow up knowing what a night sky should look like.

To even it out I feel i should add one reason why staying in Ohio wouldn't be all bad. The drivers. Sure when you get off the expressway and onto Chippewa Lake Road everyone waves at everyone else regardless of familiarity. It's just how it's done. However, once you hit an expressway, that is to say I-96 and South, you get the Michigan ("We invented 'em, we built 'em, we'll drive 'em into the ground") driver. This said, on this trip, I found myself as the "quintessential Michigan Driver" you have heard me talk about before. This is because at our first pit stop on the way home I opened the back door to get Adeline out to stretch and two spent shotgun shells fell to the pavement. Anyone who can help me figure out how they got in my truck will be rewarded.