If you’re a podcast person and are looking for something new to listen to, please check out Small Town Murder and Crime in Sports. They’re both done by the same two guys, James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman, who are f**king hilarious. Crime in Sports covers people with crazy promising sports careers who throw them away on drugs / murder / idiocy. Like, crazy 19 year old kid who can throw a 105-mph fastball and gets into a fight in a dive bar and destroys his shoulder. That type of s**t. Small Town Murder is exactly that… deep dive into a murder that happens in some hick middle of nowhere town. Always ridiculous, and always has insane players involved.

Crime in Sports is my favorite of the two, honestly, mostly because the format of Small Town Murder is a little more structured where Crime in Sports is less so, and allows them to riff and be that much more freestyle and ridiculous. Like I said, they’re f**king hilarious and I love hearing them bulls**t and do what they do best. Small Town Murder is the more popular of the two, so try them out and see what you dig.

We’ve been listening on the long drive we have over the next couple of weeks, and recently we chose a Small Town Murder case in Nashville, MI. Yes, Nashville… Michigan. On top of that, there are a bunch of towns around there that just steal their names from other places too. Vermontville. Bellevue. Charlotte. You get it.

I don’t really know how to explain the plot of the episode… essentially, some people have a nephew, then the mom of that nephew (their sister) meets a guy who legit just tried to be a good dude and be a father to the kid… and they don’t like that so they murder him. Just listen to it, they explain it way more humorously and accurately than I do.

The more pertinent point is that the town the events take place, Nashville, has an amazing ice cream place. SO… realizing this town was only an hour out of the way to our campsite in northern Michigan… yeah, we made a stop. It’s a cow farm… and it’s called Moo-ville Creamery. Because obviously. And f**k yeah, it’s delicious.

There was a whole petting zoo with baby goats, sheep, alpacas, bunnies, chickens, and obviously… cows. Because there’s nothing I want with my ice cream more than the smell of farm animals. That being said… f**king great ice cream. You know how REAL ice cream is sweet without being that artificial sugary sweet? No? Then you haven’t had real ice cream because that’s what it f**king tastes like.

Moving along…

This stop is a product of our overall move back west, but we are finding the best of everywhere we go, and in this area that would be Mackinac Island. You can only get there by ferry, and one of the lines has a few morning rides that go around and through Mackinac Bridge. This bridge connects the main glove thingy of Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. It’s also like 5 miles long and theoretically shouldn’t be possible. It took one crazy bastard to be like “yeah, we can do it” to get it done. The Elon Musk of the 1950’s basically.

Mackinac Island is this island with zero motorized vehicles, and almost everyone travels around the island on bikes. Except the people riding around in a horse drawn carriage. Or walking. That’s literally all you see on the entire island.

The ferry drops you off on the south end of the island, so we started northeast to Arch Rock. Which is… a rock… with an arch in it. We had to fight through a crowd of tourists to get a picture of it, which I hated. But I figured if we’re going to Arches and Yellowstone and all these mainstream tourist spots later in the summer we should probably get used to it.

Then we tracked up the east coast of the island, looped around the north end and down the west coast down to British Landing which is what you would think… a spot where the British… landed… in the War of 1812. The amazing part of the story is that the guy in charge for the Americans didn’t get word that the war had even started, so when the British showed up the Americans were caught so off guard the general just straight up surrendered so they didn’t just sacrifice a bunch of people for an inevitable loss. More to come on that guy…

Past that, the general theme of the island is… ROCKS. From what I learned, the water level was once way way higher around the island, and most of the island was underwater. Once the water receded the softer limestone eroded away and there are a bunch of harder limestone rock formations just sticking out like a sore thumb all over the place. This one is Cave of the Woods. Which… yeah, okay… accurate name I guess.

Next is Sugar Loaf which… yeah, is a big rock. Same deal.

This is Skull Cave which sounds awesome, but… yeah, another rock.

Now there are two forts on the island. Below is Fort Holmes, named after an American general who died in a battle. It’s at the highest point of the island, and has the best views around the island that I got zero pictures of.

So… there’s a Fort Mackinac at a lower point in the island which I also got zero pictures of. The British came in around 1812 on the aforementioned British Landing and took over the island with the American general just bending over and waving the white flag. In anticipation of a similar American attack, the British built a fort on the very top of the island and named it Fort George. 

Now the Americans charged the guy who just straight gave up when the Brits showed up with “cowardice.” Logical to me. While the guy is hanging out imprisoned at Fort Detroit, the British attack it. The dude is just standing around and is struck by a British cannonball and F**KING DECAPITATED. WHAT?!?!? F**king ridiculous. Lieutenant Porter Hanks, look it up.

The Americans tried to retake the island in 1814, but failed. They tried to follow the same path the British took in 1812 but they were like, “yeah… we know this movie. Also, we built a whole fort to deal with this.” Once the War of 1812 ended the Americans took over the island and renamed it from Fort George to Fort Holmes, in honor of the leader on the failed attempt to retake it. Then they let it go to s**t until Michigan was like “we got this” and then we showed up and took a picture of it. The end.

Once we got done and came back to the “city” we realized that between 10am and 3pm a whole s**t ton of people showed up and the streets were stupid crowded. Even if you told us there was no chance we’d catch anything walking around here, we’d still be freaking out being surrounded by so many people. It’s just the mentality we’ve developed in this mess. We’ve gone from “no one gives a shit” to “everyone gives a shit” and now back to “no one gives a shit” and it’s a goddamn mindf**k. We cannot walk by a person without a mask without immediately thinking “OH SHIT WE HAVE COVID NOW.” And when no one is wearing a mask it’s like a movie where someone’s out to assassinate you and you don’t know who it is.

It was packed. And any thought of grabbing a spot at a restaurant was out the window. So we went back to mainland to find a less touristy spot.

We got back and resumed our quest for food. The first place we went was a s**t show. First off, we pulled into the parking lot to see a group of about 20 walking in, all without masks. Then we walked in and were greeted with a hostess… with a mask around their neck. Then we took a peek at the room, and it was packed with people back to back and belly to belly (damn I miss Yankees baseball). We just turned around a walked out. F**k that.

Listen, I agree with the idea that the government should not be able to dictate something like wearing masks. They shouldn’t. I totally agree with you. I’m a strong believer in personal responsibility in this world. However, I ABSOLUTELY F**KING hate the fact that people don’t wear them. And I assure you those two are not mutually exclusive. Sometimes the government can request something that is actually the right thing to do for your fellow human. And doing it is not sacrificing your freedoms. It’s being a citizen. Obstinate defiance of the government despite logic and reason doesn’t help anyone, most of all you. Wearing a mask in public to make a little old lady feel safe while she’s shopping for groceries is not a defeat. I promise.

Anyways, later we found out that the county Mackinac Island is in has had a grand total of 8 cases and zero deaths. So… okay, maybe I should chill. But maybe I’m right in my paranoia. Regardless, we bounced out of tourist no mask town and went to Bière de Mac Brew Works, a place with good social distancing, an awesome staff all wearing masks, and great beer and food. Good on you guys. We will patronize establishments we feel are acting in a responsible way. That’s our right as American citizens, right?

TL;DR If Jenny and Chris get sick in 2-14 days, it’s because of the Michigan idiot who decided to sit behind them on the ferry and hack up a lung. F**ker.