If its Tourist Season, Why Can't We Shoot Them?

Every weekend they come. They fill the small local highway with their SUVs and their boat trailers and their lavish campers. They come up on M115 because that's the straightest route from the Metro Detroit area. These people do not come from Detroit, however, they hail from wealthier zip codes like Novi and Farmington Hills and Clarkston.

Many of then have come since they were children. It is something of a family tradition, going 'up North'. Some own cabins up here- perfectly functional houses on a small body of water. Some camp- the little state campground a mile from my house swells to capacity during the summer. When I drive by, the scent of firewood and grilling meat assails my nostrils.

We thought the high gas prices would keep them away this year- but it hasn't, not one bit. Many who have chosen to stay home this year because of gas are being replaced by people who are traveling closer. But a far greater percentage of people just aren't affected by the gas prices. One can see that in the idling Lexus GX outside the liquor store, or the Lincoln Navigator that gets fired up to drive the owners from the campground to Chico's Taco House, a distance of some half a mile.
They bring money to the area, that is true. Cadillac, Houghton Lake, Traverse City, Beulah. All towns that do not really have a lot going for them without the fickle tourist season. Towns with water, towns with closed factories and hopeful storefronts and stacks of boats by the shore.

These people come here to get away from the hectic crushing pace of life in their own towns. Every time I find myself for even an hour in the vicinity of Square Lake Road or Dixie Highway, I remember why my father transplanted away from that. Here there is peace, quiet, solace in nature. In Bloomfield Hills and Rochester there is traffic and noise and road rage and cell phones and trendy clothiers and salons. These people work in the squat office buildings all week, or in the upper echelons of the crumbling American auto industry, or they own businesses that cater to their fellow upper class Michiganders. They do this all week, fighting the traffic and the hustle and the road rage. The women work out and have their hair elaborately tinted, then bring those gleaming heads and hard bodies up here and down drinks all weekend. The men work hard but they don't seem to work out, and they bring their paunches and baseball caps and sandals up here and grill steaks and drink beer and boat all weekend.

Sometimes the women shop in the downtown areas. They do this in clutches, clones of each other tripping into the stores and ignoring the help and picking daintily through the racks of offerings. Some are kind, some are not. They bring the attitude of downstate up north into our towns. The locals see the large sunglasses and streaked hair and Hollister shirts and do their best to imitate it. But you can always, always tell a local from a tourist. We have a more relaxed set to our shoulders, a few more pounds on our bodies.

The traffic that the tourists bring is amusing. Miles of gleaming vehicles will get stuck behind one slow-moving RV on the two-lane highway. By the time the families tumble out of their cars in the Burger King parking lot, they are rumpled, tired of traveling, at odds with each other. They are never quite sure where they are going, except for the ones that have come here since childhood. Negotiating a turn across the secondary highway is a suicide wish sometimes, as many of these massive cars have no regard for any other vehicle on the road.

The Fourth of July is always a huge tourist weekend, with throngs of weary vacationers heading this way and that- to the fireworks, on a beer run, in amongst the smoking barbecues and fluttering American flags.

Then comes August- hotter and stickier than the very name leads us to believe. The tourists stay in their cars more now, running the air conditioners that leave little pools of water in every parking lot, remnants of society determined to have their leisure at any cost. The lakes here are just now fit to swim in, it has only been a few months since a foot or two of ice has melted, you see.

By September, things have slowed down somewhat. Labor Day weekend is the one last hurrah, then many families have to get their offspring to school and college and life. The park begins to empty out, the neat little stacks of firewood dwindle and disappear inside a local's barn or garage. They'll wait there, quietly, resigned to their solitude. Kind of like us, the local people that must stay here through the long and harsh winter. We don't have to struggle with the traffic any more. There will be a few short bursts of it throughout winter- hunting and ice fishing and snowmobiling and skiing draws them up again. These sports, however, bring up a rather different set of people. Burly men with large pickup trucks and voices that carry across a starkly cold landscape.

We're in the midst of it now, this tourist season. There are a few farm stands by the roadside, selling the lovely cherries that this area is famous for. Hotels stand at the ready with clean towels and indifferent 'continental breakfasts'. The local eateries have extra high schoolers ready to bus tables and fetch bread. The stores stand hopefully at the ready- maybe this year we'll make some money, maybe this year we can make enough to get us through the winter. Maybe this year we'll be the ones who leave our town and join the fray and the hustle and the noise and the traffic of down there, so that we can own the 5 bedroom 3 bath house on the perfectly manicured suburban corner, with three luxury vehicles in the garage and a party to attend every month...


and then we look around ourselves- at the lakes and the pristine forests and the peeling paint on our homes and the wild weather and the driving snow and the towering, whispering red pine... and we think to ourselves- maybe not.

Labels: Michigan, Northern Michigan, tourism, tourists, travel, up north