I was forced to listen to a lot of talk radio on Friday.� The radio people were mad, mad about the power outage, mad about the "third world" power grid, mad at the governor of New York (never really understood why), blah blah blah.� On Friday it was predicted that we could be "powerless" for four days.� The lack of power didn't really bother me.� It happens every summer in Michigan.� What did bother me was that Cleveland, NYC, Buffalo, etc. all had their power restored on Friday.� And Detroit?� They were saying it could take until Monday.�

I think people in Detroit just accept this sort of treatment.� Of course our power situation is worse than everyone else's...it's Detroit.� The radio guy was saying how outraged he was because the US has a third world power grid, and the US is not the third world.� Well, buddy, perhaps you'd like to land at Detroit Metro (consistently ranked the worst airport in the US) and take a ride with me down I-96...it ain't the third world, but it ain't up to your "first world" standards either.�

Detroit wasn't the center of the blackout, or the largest city involved...so why was it the hardest hit?

Detroit papers aren't covering that question.� Instead, the Detroit News had a front page story on how Jennifer Granholm (governor) and Kwame Kilpatrick (mayor of Detroit) kept their "cool" during the outage.� As if they would have gone on television with their hands in the air, running around like maniacs.� They "helped" by telling us to "remain calm".� Gee, thanks.� Good job, guys.

Well, Gibson and I did what we always do when we are presented with a problem: we ran away.� We dropped off water and food at my mother's house on Friday and headed up north.� Leo wanted to golf at some golf course in Oscoda.� It was a links style course and it was really pretty.� By the time we got there, we were the only ones on the course.

Lodging was a little hard to come by, from Flint until about Tawas every hotel was booked (why would anyone want to spend any time in Flint?).� We wanted to stay at the golf club resort, but it was booked too.� So, instead of staying at a resort as in "let's have a cocktail by the pool" resort, we ended up staying at the Lakeshore Beach Resort, which is a resort in the sense of "last resort".� When the desk person told me it cost $29.99 a night for a cabin, I wanted to back away slowly, then break into a run and escape.� But we didn't have much of a choice, so we took it.� It was fine.�

The next night, we were the only lodgers at a motel right on the beach.� We spent all day on the beach Saturday (I managed to get a bit sunburned). � We built a big bonfire, and ended up sharing a bottle of wine after dinner.� It was lovely.� I did find it a bit funny that we escaped Detroit because of the power outage, and we ended up at hotels without air conditioning and having a campfire.� But it was a really great weekend.