Looking for land up in Michigan

“I’m thinking,” I said to my wife a month ago, “U. P.”

“You first,” Melissa said.

When you were voted second funniest in your high school class 45 years ago, you expect people to make runs at your title.

U.P. jokes are one burden that residents of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula — Yoopers — bear. But I figured that any place averaging fewer than 19 head per square mile was likely to be a good place to find land.

We drove north through Ontario, then west along the scrubby, rocky shore of Lake Huron. Not much goes on there. Melissa started clapping when we passed parked cars.

Restaurants were infrequent between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Read more