Coast-to-coast Day 5 - Michigan, and Canada

Stuck in a major traffic jam, first thing in the morning-- on a Sunday?! Turns out there were some major storms, almost a tornado or hurricane, a couple days ago, and the freeway was washed out. We get detoured down Calumet Ave through south Chicago, back to I-90 (which we’d left). We decide to take the Northern route, bypassing Indiana and Ohio. Next stop Lansing, MI. These towns in Michigan are hurting, just like Michael Moore told you. A drab capitol, bland college town. Everything has an old and about-to-be-abandoned look. The state was built to serve the big American automobile, with a vision of green parkways linking cul-de-sac towns. Sounds nice (perhaps) but there’s no scenery, just an endless, wide highway area lined with trees and shrubs. You can’t see farms, hills, villages. Nothing. At Port Huron, we cross a big bridge into Ontario. Half-hour wait at the border. It’s flat, too, but prettier – rolling farms, red barns. Why are barns always painted red? Dinner in London, a good sized city with a big park at the center. Massey’s Fine Indian Cuisine. We spend the night in Canada, at Niagara Falls, arriving at 10:45 pm. Spray and mist in the air everywhere.