Up, U.P., and Away

 

Up, U.P., and Away            

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

I believe that a body needs to get away from…well from the burdens of the ordinary every day.  So we as many others take vacations.  But where a person goes and what a person does on vacation tells a great deal about them.  So what does going to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and walking, and walking, tell about us.

It was not our first trip to the U.P., though our last one was three years ago.  But it was the first time we chose a hotel on the shores of Lake Superior, or Munising Bay to be exact.  We wanted to see Pictured Rocks on our last trip across the Straights of Mackinac, but it was too far from our base of operations, St. Ignace, to make it a day trip.  Munising gave us a new center point and from there we could take the scenic cruise to see the colorful rock cliffs that makeup the shoreline.  But there was so much more to see in this little piece of summer paradise.  But you have to like the outdoors.  We do.

Our first outing was to hike to Sable Falls.  The roar could be heard long before the crashing waters came to view.  There are dozens of waterfalls along the northern edge of the U.P. and over the week we saw several.  And there are lighthouses.  You know we like lighthouses.  Our favorites are the ones that are a bit off the beaten path.  Au Sable Lighthouse is a 1.7 mile hike from the parking lot.  Like I said it’s off the beaten path.  The trail on the top of the cliffs, a broad way for service trucks, was pleasant enough.  But we were coaxed two thirds of the way to go down to the beach.  The sandy beach lapped by gentle waves of a nearly tabletop smooth waters of Lake Superior.  Walking on the sand, looking at the remains of ships wrecked and rotting made the walk interesting.  But when the shore turned to loose stones that were pretty, but shifted and slid beneath each step, walking  became more difficult.

The walk to another set of falls was more than a mile of muddy slippery trail, where we took care not to trip over thousands of roots that crossed our path.  The hike took us off and alone among the trees.  We wondered if we had veered astray while I watched for wildlife…large wildlife.  I slipped and fell on that hike.  Silly us we forgot to pack our hiking boots, which would have made a world of difference. But the view of the falls made up for the careful walking, the slipping, and even the falling.

As you can see one of the common threads of this trip was walking, and climbing.  Climbing stairs, thousands of stairs.  There were stairs on the trails, well most of them anyway.  There were the spiral stairs up lighthouse towers.  There were stairs down to the beach.  Yes, there were stairs at the hotel.

So what does our “away” say about us?  Woods, lighthouses, waterfalls, Great Lakes, hiking, and let’s not forget stairs.  I hope it would say we are in reasonable physical condition.  Well, fairly reasonable.  But what does it say about our mindset?  Hmmmm.  We love the outdoors, always have.  We love stuff that our minds tell us are solid, like old barns and mills and lighthouses.  Especially lighthouses.  Structures that have stood the test of time and just by standing proclaim, here I am…here I will be.  Perhaps it is a bit old fashion to seek comfort from those strong solid things we seek.  Then there is Lake Superior, the rocks, the clear water, the very immense-ness of it, places us in a clearer perspective.  There we recognize our smallness and GOD’s grandness revealed once again in HIS creation.  In truth maybe we seek the things that are absent in our everyday.  But are they absent, or have we just taken the things around us for granted?

Hmmmm---there maybe some truth to that.  Being busy can steal the subtle secrets that surround.  Maybe it takes getting away to notice.  To see truths from a new perspective.  For even here in north central Indiana there are those amazing things.  Woods and hills we drive by as we scurry on our way.  There are things all around, magnificent things, unusual things, and old things.  Things that are as frail as the Monarch Butterfly wings, or as solid as that big rock I had to dig out of my field.  There are white country churches that stand as testament that even here in the open spaces GOD can be found.  There are the old barns that were once sources of pride for families that tended the land.

Yet we need to get “away”, to experience new vistas, or rather to see different examples of what we know.  In doing so we see “life” from a new angle.  And each person chooses the places to accomplish that.  And the choices we make, the places we enjoy, shows just who we are.

(849 Words) 8-22-2017