Up North Progressive

North of Tustin but just south of the rest stop near Cadillac on northbound US 131, a blue sign beckons to motorists that accommodations are available from three hotels if they exit the highway using the off ramp numbered 167. A curious anomaly, because the Tustin exit on US 131 is numbered 168 and miles south of this sign.

You can’t help but wonder, is this elusive exit 167 like platform 9 and 3/4, and one must ram the sign at full-speed to exit US 131 and get to these hotels?

Or perhaps this is the route to the anti Hotel California: You can check in any time you like, if you can find it.

Perhaps like Brigadoon exit 167 only appears once every hundred years, and if you don’t vacate your hotel room by the 11 am checkout, you’re stuck there forever. What about the people who managed to find exit 167? Did they find an elusive spring of immortality and now live like the Tuck family?

Maybe it’s somewhere over the rainbow. and you have to ride a tornado to get to the three hotels listed as being available at off ramp 167.

Or it could be none of these things but instead a clever nod to Eris, Goddess of Chaos, by the Michigan Department of Transportation. After all, the numerology for 167 is obvious: 1+6+7=14, and 1+4=5. Discordians occasionally look for signs from Eris when they randomly need a Discordian oracle.

Despite closely looking for it when passing by the sign, exit 167 has yet to reveal itself. Every morning it’s the the rest stop and then exit 176, one of four exits to the town of Cadillac.

But that elusive fifth exit 167, north of exit 168 … maybe today will be the day.