If You Seek a Pleasant Peninsula, Look about you

The other book I'm juggling along with reading the Bible book is a National Geographic guide called "50 states: 5000 facts" (these are the kind of books you read if you're a trivia nerd, so brace yourselves anyone who's preparing to be on Jeopardy). It highlights all the best parts of each state with awesome high-def pictures that make me wonder what it'd be like to live in each of those states, a feeling that happens pretty often this time of year when summer is in full swing and the world seems full of possiblities, and it feels like the rest of the world is out and about doing fun activities while I'm stuck at home, albeit for a good reason this year which is taking care of Baby Girl Yan. The motto of Michigan is highlighted above, but I actually prefer the more condensed motto that fits on a license plate, "Great Lakes." That's kind of the appeal for me of living in Michigan, it's surrounded on 3 sides by lakes and it has a huge city with nice college towns. Maybe it's just the name, but I always felt an appeal of Ann Arbor with the mystique of college football, the distinctive yellow/maize colors, and of course the Big House. One of my bosses once remarked that she had a vacation home in Michigan she was heading towards, and my mind just went, "I would like to go to there." (A Liz Lemon quote from 30 Rock) Never mind that I have no connection to Michigan, no just one high school friend who ended up living there, and never visited except for an age 7 visit to Holland to see the Dutch windmills. It's probably a case of the imagined place being better than the reality, something that explains why Americans LOVE to talk about going to Japan. I've been to Japan twice.....it's fine, it's a different culture than America for sure, but it has an outsized attraction for American tourists.) Anyway, I've only experienced Michigan through movies and TV (watched Home Improvement as a kid, watched the post-apocalyptic TV series Station Eleven, watched "the Five-year Engagement," random Emily Blunt and Jason Segal movie, and oh yea I have stopped at the Detroit Airport (DTW) several times on connecting flights. Michigan ites are called "Yoopers," Battle Creek is called "Cereal City" because it's home to Kellogg, there's a class called "Surivving the Coming Zombie Apocalypse" at Michigan State University. These are the type of fun facts this book has. 129 lighthouses along the shores of Michigan, most in the country......that's a fun fact because the top 2 states with the largest coastlines are Alaska and Florida, but I guess they don't need as many lighthouses. Something about lighthouses gives me the romatntic idea of a cold autumn night drifting in the lake with waves splashing into the rocks. It's an aesthetic that's hard to replicate, and kudos for the people to who built lighthouses, they're a practical innovation but also probably even more valuable for adding to the skyline and ocean scenery: whenever MJ and I go on a roadtrip and I spot a lighthouse, I get excited and want to visit. It usually turns out to be closed and can't go in, but it's the connection between land and the great blue beyond. It especially appeals to the introvert in me to imagine living in a lighthouse, reading books like "Moby Dick" or watch "Manchester by the Sea" while getting away from people. Maybe in a different life, I'm a fisherman working in Lake Huron who operates a boat and have a golden retriever waiting at home, turn on Detroit Tigers games on the radio. I guess that's what these National Geographic books are good for, not just learning fun facts but imagining yourself in a different life.