I love going up to Michigan.

The drive is like decompression; arrival is like landing.

We climb into our pod (aka our Toyota Matrix, aka "Neo") close the doors and we’re off, shuffling through half-a-dozen CDs (carefully hand-selected). With one stop for gas etc., (all off-ramp gas station/bathroom/foodmart/rest areas feel eerily similar) we arrive in under four hours.

I stretch mightily, shaking off the vaguely catatonic hypnosis from the road (driving is so much like sleepwalking).

Inhale.

I love the way Penny and I talk during the trip. We share space so well, a lucky combination of disposition, circumstance (man, we’ve had some small apartments) and pheromones.

The route feels like time travel. We leave our tightly packed neighborhood - rows of statuesque three flats between squat and sturdy six and eight unit condoplexes. We turn onto what is, for southbound traffic, the beginning of Lake Shore Drive.

The City eventually gives way to some of the most industrial parts of the Midwest. Gary, Indiana still smells like what a lot of the rust belt communities experienced before the advent of clean air standards: Ash, sulphur, sewage, god-know-what else strong enough to make you stick your face in your shirt.

Indiana becomes Michigan, and the hills and trees look manicured, even when leafless. They have the craziest things out there, things from centuries ago, like vineyards, orchards, farms - with very large animals!

Completing our journey back in time, after 180 miles of pavement, the road evaporates, becoming dirt, then gravel.

Inhale.