Weeknotes: July 13–17, 2026
Monday, July 13
Another heat wave arrives, as if reporting for its week-long residency. I write the forecast in my notebook, just to see the temperatures all neatly lined up in my own handwriting. Around two o'clock, I relent, button up the house, and turn on the air-conditioning. In icy privilege, I sit on my bed and work, back propped against a pillow.
Later, at the brewpub, I get to know a couple I met earlier in the summer who are relatively new to Michigan. Both are fascinating — erudite and well-traveled, with a bundle of interests that bisect my own. They tell me about living in Antarctica and cycling across the U.S. We discuss running, writing, and Howard Frank Mosher. I note with satisfaction both are notebook carriers, and as we trade book recommendations, my Japanese brass pen gets passed back and forth across the table.
Weeknotes: June 22–26, 2026
Monday, June 22 – Friday, June 26
Last Saturday, after not very much deliberation, I bought yet another tent, a nice one with enough room for my cot. At Ossineke State Forest, just above the 45th parallel, I fall asleep to the music of wind and surf, practically alone at this remote, rustic campground.
Tournotes: July 17–19, 2024
Wednesday, July 17
Just after highway marker 334 on I-75, the bridge suddenly appears on the horizon. Depending on the atmosphere it may be a hazy mirage jutting out of the woods or a sharp relief of cream-colored gates against the blue. Today the weather is dramatic and I make my crossing to Dina Ögon's pastoral "Oas" while freighters churn into the straits from sunny Lake Michigan. To the east, stormclouds fall across Lake Huron in a foreboding smear above the three nearby islands. Dead ahead is an uncertain mix of gray and white over the green expanse of the Upper Peninsula. Crossing the Mackinac Bridge is never not special. Midway through, the right lane is cordoned off where two workers in hazmat suits blast flakes of Federal Standard 595c #14110 (foliage green) off the massive suspension cables with a firehose. I don't think I have ever crossed without encountering some type of maintenance. At the toll booth in St. Ignace I pay my own fare and that of the car behind me, a custom I learned years ago from K.