Point K: Marion

Start drive time: 4:28 PM EST
End drive time: 8:46 PM EST
Pit stops: Grand Blanc, Birch Run
Miles driven today: oh crap. I lost track. Let's say 186
Total miles driven this trip: 3,038 (give or take...I'M NOT AN ACCOUNTANT)
Number of anti-abortion signs seen on the side of the road: I don't even wanna talk about it. Just know that Lower Michigan is on my poop list too

I could be really pedantic right now and write about flying into Romulus (an entire blog post about sleeping with my mouth open in terminals!) or sleeping for 20 hours in my sister's dorm room bed in Ypsilanti (because if you can't turn Arrested Development jokes into real-life situations, UR DOING IT WRONG), but let's just fast-forward through the fact that I spent wayyyyyy longer on a college campus than is appropriate and move on to the next portion of my trip.

Ugggghhhhhh. They changed Google Maps and I don't know how to deal with new aesthetics...we fear change

Oh hey, moar Michigan! Let's play with haikus today:

Desolate farmland
Interspersed with industry
That's pretty much it

Need an abortion?
You have to buy insurance
Thanks, legislature

Sorry, 'merica
For giving you Ted Nugent
But "Fred Bear" was cool

It's not "DMV"
It's "Secretary of State"
But it sucks the same

Kwame Kilpatrick
Needs to put his phone away
I can't unread that

My grandparents live in the kind of rural 'merica where the ratio of evangelical nondenominational churches to humans is 32:1 and anti-abortion signs outnumber stop signs by a REAL gross majority. Ugggggghhhhhhh. My little sister is an undergrad, which means that she's way more tolerant than I am about everything and since she just used her meal plan to buy me ice cream, I will attempt to channel the spirit of Sisterbutt and not be a total wad right now about how vast swathes of the Lower Peninsula are the WORST.
Must. Resist. Backwater. Jokes.

Jesus wud resist the temptation to comment on this. Jesus wud be very gud. 

Michigan had a President. That's cool. He's famous for Chevy Chase inaccurately portraying him as clumsy and for not even remotely being elected by the Electoral College. He also was all like "Yo, Nixon. It okay. Don't be cry. Have you ever seen how ugly turkeys is? I forgive them, so I forgive you. You're less ugly than a turkey."

See? Farmland is pretty. Icicles are pretty. CARville is....still not the prettiest girl at the ball

This part of Michigan also has Amish people. Although most people associate the Amish with horse-drawn buggies, candlelight, and hella dope quiltwork, the history of this group in Michigan is a bit....seedier. Prior to their adoption of the symbols of simple living that we now associate with Mennonites, Amish-Americans had built a large metropolis that spanned most of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and was known as Yoderopolis. This city had a reputation for being one of history's most decadent bins of iniquity, famous for its bright lights, garish decor, and loud music. After a long weekend in Yoderopolis, the Marquis de Sade was quoted as saying "I have seen some sick things in my day, but never, NEVER, have I witnessed the indescribable acts that occur openly on the streets of this antechamber of Hell." The Marquis died of a fever several days later but The City That'll Try Anything Once continued to lure in the innocent and dispatch jaded, drug-addled burnouts into the region for decades to come. Only after a particularly bacchanalian orgy in 1937 that resulted in a devastating fire, decimation of livestock, and record numbers of misspelled tattoos of ex-lovers names on derrieres did the Amish community pull themselves off the floor and ask themselves "What am I doing with my life?" and mend their wicked ways. The following decade was spent drinking vast quantities of coconut water and re-aligning their priorities until they came to develop the framework for modern-day, sustainable Amish living.