Loon Time

In last week’s post, I spoke of dialing down my pace by a couple of notches when on vacation with my parents. This past week, I have been in northern Michigan with my longest continuous friend and her husband, and my pace dialed back even further.

My friend’s husband’s family has been coming to this lovely cabin on the shores of Burt Lake since it was built in 1906. The original split log cabin has a great room and two bedrooms, and an addition in the 1920’s added another bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. There’s a screened-in porch where the family spends most of their time in the summer.

I was invited to come up with my friend and her husband for early-mid October. We anticipated an autumn leaf spectacle and cool days and nights. I was told to bring layers because the cabin was not heated. I was also told to bring a bathing suit because jumping in the lake was a tradition. We did not honor said tradition.

There was a time in my life when the prospect of no central heat would have scared me away, but I look at aspects of travel like this as an adventure now. I slept well and quite cozily in my wool socks, long underwear, pajamas, and under two quilts, one wool blanket, and two down comforters. Our mornings and evenings were spent in front of an almost continuous blaze in the stone fireplace. There is nothing quite so inviting as staring into a roaring fire, bundled in blankets.

Because it was so cold in the mornings (usually in the 30’s), we stayed in bed until about 9:00, and retired about 10:00. That’s where my severely dialed back pace showed itself. Plus, we really had nothing that we had to do.

While drinking coffee and eating homemade cherry pie for breakfast, we would casually formulate a plan for the day. We did lots of leaf looking and some sightseeing, but we usually didn’t start until noon, and it was at a very leisurely pace.

It warmed up my last day there, and we were able to take the boat up the lake to the mouth of Crooked River. We rode up the river for a good three miles before turning around and coming home. We saw a couple of muskrats slide into the water and three great blue herons standing among the tall grasses at the river’s edge.

While walking the property on earlier days, we spotted three deer, numerous black squirrels, a swan, and the only pileated woodpecker I have ever seen in the wild.

The most magical times for me were the mornings that I didn’t stay in bed, but got up to see the sunrise over the lake and the full moon set behind the cabin. Sitting in an Adirondack chair at the end of the pier, swaddled in quilts, coffee mug in hand, I would lose myself in the mist on the lake, the gradually lightening sky, and the haunting sounds of loons calling to each other across the lake. Their lonely, wild song melted my heart as I merged into the world surrounding me. No one needed me. There was no time. There was nowhere I needed to be.

I could only be present.

Here is a short video with loon calls.