Ha, Ive got you beat, Airflyte! I'm in Marquette Michigan, about two blocks away from Lake Superior.
Being in Michigan, everyone thinks of Detroit, but I'm 462 miles north of Detroit, far above the mighty Mackinac Bridge. We call people from downstate, trolls, because they live below The Bridge, and want to come up here to God's country. We're known as Yoopers, as in the U.P. (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan. I'm so far north, that people mistake my accent for Canadian, or associate me with Fargo, because of the movie. And no lie, i have my various ipad and phone devices set to Canadian English, because it doesn't understand me if i set it to U.S. English.
And as Airflyte must know, we call Wisconsin people Cheddars, as in Cheddarheads, because of those wedge of cheese hats they wear at Green Bay packer games. And yes, I'm a Packer fan, not a Lions fan. I think the entire U.P. are mostly Packer fans, because we're much closer to Green Bay and have more in common with rural Wisconsin than Detroit.
We've got one music store in town, and when i went there last week, they had one clarinet ligature and no swabs in stock, though they had about a hundred guitars and racks of cords and pedals and stuff, really disappointing, and they wonder why people don't buy local.
It's a beautiful town, despite that deficit, voted one of the ten most bike friendly places in the U.S., with 150 miles of mountain bike trails, 80 of paved trails, and even something like 60 miles of wintertime snow trails, groomed for fat tire snow bikes. All summer long, every weekend, some big event is going on, music and art festivals, and lots of bike and running races. I'd be hard pressed to ever move away again. I've lived in larger cities, and as a former long haul truck driver, I've been everywhere. Yes, I drove all alone, a flatbed truck where i had to secure down the loads. I've been to every continental state but Alaska, and drove through lots of Canada. Couldn't figure out how to drive to Hawaii, otherwise I'd of made it there too!
Needless to say, we get tons of snow and have a really long winter, we've already had frost at night. We probably average about 180 inches of snow a season, around 15 feet, so winter sports and hobbies are popular.
I've uploaded a picture of U.S. 41, on a typical winter day.
Lisa, in Marquette Michigan, USA
