Gaylord, Michigan

According to my friend Gwen, the proper name for a person residing in Michigan is a ‘Michigander’. I suppose if I was to stay here forever, or even just for a while, I would become one too.
I’m in Gaylord, Michigan now, in a housing development on a lake no longer than a city block. Gaylord is a Swiss-themed, self described ‘Alpine Village’. I’m staying at the home of my friend Gwen’s Grandparents, who have been putting up with me graciously, despite the fact that i have already been flagged as being an ‘unknown stranger’ by the neighbourhood watch when I wandered, lost in amongst rows of identical brown cottages on my morning walk.
Gwen had proved herself to be infinitely fun and patient when she lived with me in the foreign student hostel in Pondicherry, as well as as when we backpacked in Thailand together. This is the girl that held my hand one time when I went into anaphylactic shock. We have a great time together.
It was a long drive up from Detroit to the Northern part of the state, but was quite a lot earlier than the day before, when I had taken a seventeen-hour Megabus journey through five states and the District of Columbia, with a brief layover in Pittsburgh, where I’d visited the Warhol Museum. Andy Warhol would have turned over in his grave if he’d known that the museum bearing his name was to permanently reside, not in his beloved New York, but his despised hometown of Pittsburgh. I discovered that laminated poster replicas of his work simply don’t do it justice, but I was most surprised to learn that Warhol was a fairly devout Catholic, who went to Church on Sundays throughout his entire life and volunteered at a soup kitchen.
Tonight, we’re headed to Putoski, another touristy town on an inlet near the top of Lake Michigan. The air is fresh and cool, and road there is lined with red pines planted by the the Civilian Conservation Corps during the depression to make up for deforestation due to logging. Gwen and I will roll down the windows let Michigan surround us completely.