I come from Michigan, in the United States of America.
It is a land of freeways and smokestacks, of traffic jams and strip malls, megalithic housing projects and enormous rail yards.
It is a land where the speed limit is 70 miles per hour, but most drivers are in too much of a hurry for that, just as Michiganders are always in a hurry.
It is a land of snow, white snow and dirty black snow, salt filled slushy snow and compressed icy snow.
The Winter Season lasts 6 months of the year, and the Road Construction Season lasts the other 6 months.
Of course, that is Southeastern Lower Michigan, where I live, and where the Detroit Metropolitan Area is.
West of us are the Irish Hills, and beyond those are the endless farmfields of central and western Michigan, the cherry and apple farms along the west coast, the bean crop to the north, the conifer clad heights of Northern Lower Michigan, and the vast and endless wilderness of the Upper Peninsula.
Lake Michigan, long, broad, and ever cold, sits in the same basin (and is really one lake with) as Lake Huron, and our Lower Peninsula sticks up between them.
Lake Erie, where the revellers go and the famed Cedar Point amusement park is, is off to the southeast.
And to the north of the Upper Peninsula is the vast expanse of Lake Superior, unconquerable by winter, undaunted by summer's heat, always deep, dark, and bone numbingly cold.
In other words, the boating and fishing are great.
Along with skiing, snow boarding, sledding (this sometimes includes your car in the winter), snowmobiling, and anything involving forests.
There are also the Red Wings, the Tigers, and the Lions, who for some reason never win at the Super Bowl (for that matter, they've never reached the Super Bowl.)
But if you're into big sports, and even bigger traffic jams (read: 60 miles of backed up traffic and that is not an exaggeration), go to the college football games between Michigan and Michigan State.
Michigan's major cities ...
Well, in the Upper Peninsula there are the towns of Ironwood, Marquette, S.S. Marie, Newberry, Handcock/Houghton, and Iron Mountain.
In the Lower Peninsula, in the north, there is Alpena, Grayling, Traverse City, Cadillac, Cheboygan, Gaylord, and Oscoda.
In Central Lower Michigan are the cities and towns of Midland, Bay City, and Saginaw (the Tri-Cities), Clare, Bad Axe, Newaygo, and Muskegon.
And down here in Southern Lower Michigan are Port Huron, Jackson, Lansing, Battle Creek, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Holland, Benton Harbor, Tecumseh, Hillsdale, Coldwater, and Monroe.
Then there is the Detroit Metropolitan Area.
That's where I live.
Within the Detroit Metropolitan Area are:
Ann Arbor, Saline, Milan, Ypsilanti, Dexter, Salem Township, Superior Township, Northfield Township, Webster Township, Dexter Township, Scio Township, Pittsfield Township, Marion Township, Van Buren Township, Plymouth, Northville, Canton Township, Livonia, Westland, Garden City, Wayne, Inkster, Plymouth Township, Northville Township, Romulus, Huron Township, Redford Township, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Taylor, Lincoln Park, Allen Park, River Rouge, Ecorse, Wyandotte, Southgate, Riverview, Flat Rock, South Rockwood, Trenton, Gibrator, Gross Ile Township, Flint, Flint Township, Mt Morris, Burton, Grand Blanc, Grand Blanc Township, Howell, Brighton, Pickney, Brighton Township, Hartland Township, Tyrone Township, Howell Township, Oceola Township, South Lyon, South Lyon Township, Novi, Farmington Hills, Farmington, Bloomfield Township, West Bloomfield Township, Commerce Township, Walled Lake, Wolverine Lake, Sylvan Harbor, Pontiac, White Lake Township, Auburn Hills, Springfield Township, Independence Township, Oakland Township, Whitmore Lake, Rochester Hills, Rochester, Royal Oak, Troy, Berkley, Hazel Park, Oak Park, Southfield, Beverly Hills, Bingham Farms, Clawson, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Waterford Township, Pleasant Ridge, Ferndale, Madison Heights, Warren, Sterling Heights, Clinton Township, Rosedale, Eastpoint, Grosse Point, Grosse Point Shores, Grosse Point Woods, Harper Woods, Fraser, Harrison Township, Mt Clemens, Shelby Township, Macomb Township, Chesterfield Township, Washington Township, Highland Park, Hamtramick, Holly, Holly Township, Lake Orion, Orion Township, Oxford and Oxford Township, plus those I cannot remember offhand.
Of course, Detroit sits in the middle of it all.
Windsor, on the Canadian side of the river, is a fast growing city in it's own right (400,000 and growing fast.)
