jumpingfish

So our summer vacation was at an end. We had been on the road a month, had slept three nights in a real bed, roasted in the sun, shivered in the cold, survived gray and wind and rain, managed to avoid biting fly season in the Upper Peninsula, slapped many mosquitos and tweezed a few ticks, visited friends, visited family, eaten well, slept hard.

Now it was time to leave that cottage on that hill on that lake and go home.

It was a five day trip home with one-night-stops at campgrounds in Indiana, Illinois, Arkansas, and Texas. The “camping” was of the no-nonsense arrive-eat-sleep-eat-depart variety.

At the end of day five with 30 minutes to go, Izzy suddenly knew where she was. She watched our progress intently and sniffed incessantly anticipating her home.

And so now, 1455 miles after leaving Michigan, we are at home back in Texas.

Huckleberries have grown on this hill for a long time. Warmed by the sun. Tended and picked and eaten by generations.

They await the arrival of the next.

There was one night when we were in The Porkies when it rained quite a lot. Not a deluge, mind you, but enough for us to be thankful that we were in a trailer instead of a tent. 

The next morning, the storm was gone and there was a gentle breeze. I saw a couple setting up camp a few sites down from us. They had just arrived. There was a tarp and sheet hanging from a long rope strung between two trees. One of them was shaking the fly and furiously sweeping the inside of the tent. He looked up and smiled.

“Did you get wet last night?” I asked, wondering where they had arrived from.

“Yeah,” he said, “but it wasn’t too bad.”

He then explained that after three years of dating, he and his partner had taken a long weekend from where they worked (in food service in Wisconsin) and without telling anyone got married in Mackinac. He and she had told no one of their plans, had borrowed his boss’s car for the trip, and were on their way home. Later that day, I saw him writing “Just Married” on the back of the car as she drew green ivy designs on one side and wrote something in runes on the other side.

The following morning, as Trudy and I were enjoying the free hot chocolate and coffee at the camp host’s site (evidently a summer Saturday and Sunday perk at the campground), I looked over to the newlyweds’ site to say goodbye. All was quiet at their campsite. Their tent was still closed.

What a shame to miss them and not get another chance to congratulate them. Instead I got a pen and some paper and left them a note on the door of their car.

I forgot to date it. I bet they’ll remember.

There’s a Nuthatch skipping up the trunk of a tree. A Kingfisher is chattering as it skims across the water. A family of ducks is paddling out from the swamp. And an Osprey was gliding into the branches of a tall White Pine on the eastern and then the western shore of the lake. The sky is gray. A gentle rain is falling, leaving circular ripples on the water in the lake, dropping drips thru the canopy of maple and pine.

The fair and industrious Trudy is on a Teams call sitting in her remote office that looks out on the lake. Her boss posted her picture into the meeting for everyone to see.

“It’s pretty amazing,” he says to her, “how productive you have been in such a beautiful place.”

You can do this

when you visit Paul and Jill

at their cabin on the lake.

Thanks, you guys!