Sittin by the Edge of the Bay

It is very, very pleasant here in O.B.Fuller County Park on the edge of the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. The breeze is onshore and, except for a picnic table, a fringe of shoreline pines, and a Trumpeter Swan with five little ones, there is nothing between us and Door County, Wisconsin  where radio tower lights twinkle with the stars. 
Up the other way I can imagine I see the lights on the Mackinac Bridge  which we crossed in the early afternoon. 
We prefer to forget the 450 plus miles of featureless freeway we drove to get here –Too Fast and TOO LONG!
We passed everything that makes this Michigan –- the coastal towns, the rivers with magic names—Au Sable, Pere Marquette, Manistee.  Towns like Grayling, Petoskey, Alpena  and Ludington were just exit signs.
  When we were in grad school at MSU (and starving), we watched Mort Neff’s Michigan Outdoors program every Thursday night. (Everybody watched; that’s why every Michigan citizen can tell you the best rivers to canoe, even if they never have). We had so little money that we seldom got out of the county;Only by the grace of my college roommate did I see any of richness of Michigan.  So be it resolved that we will do no more 400 mile days and we will find time to give Michigan its due.
Tomorrow we will forget these sins we have just repented and drive another 250 across the Upper Peninsula to meet our friends and settle into their cozy lakeside cottage  for days which promise to be warmed with friendship and just active enough to make new memories.