We headed north today, Anne having fulfilled her obligation as the dutiful daughter, at least for a little while. Hitting the highway around Ann Arbor, I noticed that one of those traffic message boards was warning of a Mackinaw Bridge closure. I paid it little heed thinking that it was just announcing the annual Labor Day walk. Color me surprised when later while crossing this bridge, we got caught in a big backup on the bridge. After waiting in traffic like forever, we eventually made it to the toll booths. As it turned out, they had closed the Upper Peninsula. Most people were being turned around and sent back down to their states of origin. It was a horrible mess. Eventually, it became our turn to plead our case. Anne told the tollbooth operator that she owned property in the UP, property that her grandfather had first purchased a hundred years ago. Maybe it was that or maybe it was her big blue eyes, but either way, the operator grudgingly let us through, after we had paid our four-dollar toll of course. So many other people were not so lucky. I never believed that the xenophobia that had begun on the US-Mexican border would reach so far north.