Sunset on a summer night in Buffalo. Fifty-odd people are practising their downward dogs on the lawn by the waterfront, the shoreline of Canada appearing upside down between their knees. In front of them, dozens more are on the river, taking to the water in kayaks, sightseeing boats and even — because this is America — motorised floating tiki bars.

A few miles south, people are packing up after a day on the beach at Lake Erie: sand the best kind of beige, water glassily still, accessed via a sylvan glade. And across the water from the yogis, a mother deer is guiding Bambi quietly through the reeds in the marshland of a nature reserve.

Welcome to the Rust Belt.

Tell an American you’re going