Everyone Needs a Getaway

While picking up a few things at a local store in Hessel, a tiny village in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, I engaged the cashier is a little conversation. "I'm up here from Detroit, doing a few things with our cabin," I said at one point.

"Yeah," the cashier, a local, replied, "I have to get down to Harrison and work on our place there."

Harrison is just about smack in the middle of the mitten, or lower peninsula, of Michigan. "It's so quiet and peaceful," the man continued.

Though I didn't pursue it, I couldn't help but think, 'Quiet and peaceful there? You're in the sparsely populated UP. How could it possibly be quieter downstate (downstate is generally frowned upon by us Yoopers, folks from da UP) than Hessel?' 

We all need a getaway, I suppose. I just can't see what he's getting away from in Hessel by going two hours south. No offense, Harrison, because I've been there and you're cool. But escaping Hessel at all...I can't wrap my head around that.