Grumpy Bulldog Does America Day 1: The Easy Tutorial Level

Coming to you live from Port Huron, Michigan!  Which if you don't know Michigan geography is in the lower part of "The Thumb" on the east side.  Which is really the complete opposite direction I intended to go, but there's a method to the madness--or just more madness.

A fact according to a Simpsons video game is that 90% of games start off with an easy tutorial level.  In my experience this is pretty much the case.  So what I'm doing here is kind of the easy tutorial level, basically going somewhere I've already been, several times actually.

I didn't really go anywhere on Labor Day weekend.  Packing up and cleaning up the old apartment took a lot more time and effort than I thought, which includes a panicked run to Meijer supercenter at 10:30pm to get a freaking cheap wrench because the stupid Comcast guy decided he had to prove what a He-Man he was in installing the cable cord.  And I'd stupidly packed up all my wrenches and put them in the storage unit--which was closed.  So a half-hour and $6 later I now have an adjustable wrench to keep with my shit in case I need it again.

So basically I didn't feel like doing a whole lot of driving and stuff.  I guess you could think of it as taking a day off from my vacation.  Because I'm lazy like that.

Port Huron wasn't my actual destination.  I went farther north to Lexington, MI.  It has the distinction of being pretty much the first free place you can park along Lake Huron from Metro Detroit up through the Thumb.  I found it about 10 years ago by accident and had a really great Zen moment there while sitting on a rock at the end of the pier.

The thing about Lexington though is if you want to go and not deal with a bunch of annoying teenagers and such, you should go when school is in session, and of course before school gets out.  So a September afternoon after Labor Day is the perfect time to go because there won't be so many people.  Unfortunately there still were some people, like a couple of idiots trying to fish from a pier.  I'm not sure what they were hoping to catch.  I mean, I don't think that water is very deep, just deep enough for small boats.

Anyway, going to harbors now always makes me think of Chance of a Lifetime, because the first place Steve wakes up as Stacey Chance is in a harbor, though it was actually based on one on the Detroit River near where I used to work.  She steals some clothes from a boat, but since it was broad daylight I didn't rifle through anyone's boats.  I have to think of a way to incorporate more shameless plugs into these posts.

I've taken a lot of pictures of the harbor in my various visits, so I didn't take as many today.  Just 61!  I'm not sure how well these will all post, since Blogger (still) sucks at posting pictures.  (It's 2014 jerks, get with the program.)

A not-so-fun fact is many of the rocks didn't used to be whitewashed.  Stupid punks had to go and start graffiting them for whatever stupid reason, so that I suppose was the easiest way to cover it up.  Sad that morons have to ruin nature like that.  Personally I've always considered graffiti to be like a dog lifting his leg to mark territory, especially all those stupid gang signs in Detroit.  If they spent half as much effort doing something constructive they spent in climbing to obscure places to put their stupid tags, the city wouldn't be such a shit hole.

Anyway, there you go.  Another not-so-fun-fact is I could have stayed in Lexington, but the motels there suck.  There aren't any chain ones and the one I stayed at in 2009 didn't have air conditioning, which really isn't fun in August.  And a lot are closed for the season now.  Basically the whole town is going to start closing except for Thursday-Sunday, so I guess I got there at a good time.

When I got down to Port Huron I went to the Panera Bread they built a year or so ago and wrote a little.  Got to try to keep that going too, when I can.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I'll probably be going to the opposite side of the state.  Then finally out of state, which is where the real journey will begin.  I haven't figured out where to stop yet.  Is there anything worthwhile in Illinois outside of Chicago?  I've already been there a few times.  I thought of going to Indianapolis to Butler University, but they say you should never meet your heroes.

Until next time...