{"id":12941,"date":"2021-01-04T14:52:02","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T19:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=12941"},"modified":"2021-01-04T14:52:02","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T19:52:02","slug":"turning-lemons-into-lemonade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=12941","title":{"rendered":"Turning lemons into lemonade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Longtime readers know that I was raised in Detroit and attended college in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, earning two engineering degrees from Michigan Tech.<\/p>\n

When I left Tech I had the vague idea that I’d like to go back to the U.P. to live someday; it’s gorgeous up there, and exhibits a friendly, open culture you don’t find in the busy-busy-busy career centers, the big cities swarming with … Donald Trump-types.<\/p>\n

So my first job was in the western Lower Peninsula, and when the ’82-recession hit I followed the work to Florida — where Disney was the engine sparking a lot of the building that kept civil engineers busy. There, I met and married a Florida girl, and the notion of someday moving back to the U.P. got set aside. In the event, it was 35-years between my 2nd<\/sup>-graduation and a return visit to the Upper Peninsula. Not much has changed in the intervening decades, and the U.P.’s idea of a crowd is laughable to anybody familiar with the Outer Banks or — Heaven Forfend! — Cocoa.<\/p>\n


Miserably crowded U.P. beach<\/center><\/p>\n

Dawn and I have driven back up there 4-5 times since that first trip, and have idly talked about buying a summer retirement place on Lake Superior. This year, of course, the pandemic prevented us from traveling, and more than a few of the Web sites associated with our regular destinations are gone. The pandemic killed tourism, and the lack of tourism killed a lot of seasonal businesses. All of which gave me a grin when I got an email today from one of the U.P.’s tourist bureaus.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

Oh, yeah — social distancing is definitely<\/i> a U.P. thing. I wish them well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Longtime readers know that I was raised in Detroit and attended college in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, earning two engineering degrees from Michigan Tech. When I left Tech I had the vague idea that I’d like to go back to the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12941"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12941"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12946,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12941\/revisions\/12946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}