Rolling down Michigan’s interstate Highway 75, you don’t see much. This scene is what passes for a mountain in the flat, Great Lakes State rubbed flat by a glacier millions of years ago.
At a rest stop I photographed what I believed to be poisonous sumac. I remember it as a child when I grew up in the Upper Peninsula. I made pink frosting with the berries with my mother’s warning ringing in my ears. “Don’t taste it, remember, it is poisonous.” I looked it up on the internet and found out it is a harmless relative of poison sumac. It can cause a rash, and that’s it.
I saw several old barns and managed to catch two of them. By the time I get my lens cap off, open the window and aim, with the motor home on cruise control, I usually miss.
I call them endangered species. What I missed, a truck with 22 tires, eleven dullies per side, racing down the road. The second item I missed: a sign on a tiny building, about 4 feet tall and 3 feet square with a satellite dish attached to the roof and this sign: My Wife Wanted To Come Home and I told her I’d build her a Place Of Her Own. Third: we’ve seen two WORKING drive in movie places. Also endangered species.
We reached Indian River and had the good luck to pull into Post #7439. We were just about to have a cocktail when Dave, Leo and Ray pulled in and invited us in for a beer. Dave is 60, Navy, Viet Nam era. Leo, 85 years young, WWII. Ray, age 80, a veteran of the Korean War. A super friendly bunch of guys who welcomed us and traded stories with us for a couple of hours. In fact Ray taught me about a place in California I’d never heard of. We were pointed to a better road than the Interstate for tomorrow, and reminded of a number of sites to see. Vets! It doesn’t get better than this bunch of Brothers. Thanks, guys.
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