Weeknotes: July 28–August 1, 2025
Monday, July 28
Site 41 at Brevort Lake Campgrounds. It's on the quieter, wilder side of the lake and comes with a small corridor leading to a secluded window of access framed by shady cedars and bisected by a tall white pine. After a dawn swim I lay in the hammock I've strung up next to this window and read my book. A mallard and her nearly-grown brood glide by. An eagle’s reflection slips across the water's surface. A loon makes its tremulous, watery call. Chipmunks race up and down the cedars.
A few hours later our group of nine is paddling down the Manistique River through eleven unpopulated miles of the Seney Wildlife Refuge. It's a stunning bit of wilderness, though none of us was prepared for the unrelenting swarms of deer flies that circle our heads for almost the entire trip. There's a lot of swearing and waving of hats mixed with determined nature-going. We gut it out and survive to drink whiskey around the fire later. Out on the lake the loons' calls sound like a closing ceremony. LOL — Lots of Loons.
Tuesday, July 29
The ducks are back and this time they come ashore, each one making a diminutive plop as its body leaps out of the water and onto the grass next to my hammock. I pretend to read, but am wholly engrossed in their grazing. Annie comes over and feeds them from a carton of blueberries.
Two from our group head home early and a handful of the remaining campers drive north to explore Fiborn Karst Preserve, an abandoned limestone quarry. The Upper Peninsula is pocked with remnants of failed industry — this quarry closed in 1936, leaving behind a small cluster of crumbling buildings to be graffitied by future explorers and eventually preserved by the Michigan Karst Conservancy. It reminds me of the Quincy Mine ruins I visited last summer further north in the Keweenaw.
The group reunites for lunch in St. Ignace at the Fish Trolley — I order a basket of whitefish and chips and lay in the grass drinking an RC Cola while I wait. Our afternoon activity is a swim in the big lake off Highway 2. Most of us came away from yesterday's river voyage with a minor collection of insect bites and mild sunburns, but Sky seems to have absorbed enough sunlight into his legs to power a small village. He's clearly in pain, but insists on joining us at the beach, and not even to swim. We're quite a ways off shore when he changes his mind. We watch him carefully, painfully remove his pants to come out and join us. There are gasps.
"Oh no…. Sky!"
"Jesus, dude!"
"Go to the hospital!"
His legs are nuclear. They are the legs of a fully-clothed Santa Claus. They are emergency red. I've never seen such a bad sunburn. I immediately wade back to shore to give him some ibuprofen, then we gingerly walk back out together hoping the cool waters of Lake Michigan will give him some relief.
Wednesday, July 30
The smoky haze that plagued us all week is even worse today. From the north end of the Mackinac Bridge, we can barely see the other side five miles away. At the bridge terminal I don’t have enough cash to pay for our car and the one behind us, so I put the second one on my credit card — now is not the time to break my karmic cycle. We cross to Michael McDonald's "I Gotta Try" then stop in Mackinaw City for disappointing avocado toast from a confusing cafe. The little town is coming to life — souvenir shops put out their shingles and tourists gather at the ferry terminals for their day on the island.
By late afternoon I'm home, showered, my camping gear cleaned and stowed. I fetch Islay from my parents' house and drive back home through dramatic rainstorms wondering if any of it will end up in my basement.
Thursday, July 31
I visit CC to drop off a belated gift that didn't arrive in time for her baby shower. At her request I also deliver a vanilla milkshake from McDonald's. She's at full term — the baby is due any day. Later we have a sectional band practice without her and Mary who can't make the next gig. We’ll play as a quartet. Ryan brings pizza and it's amazing. New Haven-style red pie from a Detroit area franchise called Tomatoes Apizza. My bass playing is getting better. It's taken a while and I need to practice more, but I'm getting somewhere.
Friday, August 1
Around 11 AM, the Air Quality Index briefly drops to 54 — I see my window and take it, running a tentative seven miles and noting whether or not my lungs protest. I don't have asthma and am not in what is considered a "sensitive group," nor do I want to be by forcing myself to run in bad air. It's a catch 22. My training cycle this summer has been disrupted too many times by air quality alerts. I know other runners who are just ignoring it and going out anyway, but I'm banking on this sport keeping me healthy throughout my later years, not giving me respiratory and cardiovascular issues. I'm trying to use my best judgement — it's not easy.
Later, at Jack's barn in Dexter, we gather for Little Traps' record release show which is a huge success. They draw a big crowd, among whom are my whole family and many of my closest friends. Between sets we sit at the picnic table outside Jack's workshop, a place where I've spent many happy times. The cornstalks out back are impossibly tall, a green Fortress of Solitude. I'm standing at its border talking to Sky — now on antibiotics for his sunburned legs — when we hear a rustling. Greg emerges from the corn palace grinning like Shoeless Joe Jackson.